Plastics and waste are being managed, but travel, power, and touring logistics remain invisible in India’s climate conversation
If you follow the marketing, every other festival claims to be “green” now. Reusable cups, compostable forks, and a ban on plastic straws. But the biggest chunk of music’s carbon footprint doesn’t fit neatly in a tote bag. Instead, they’re the flights routing global tours, the car trips fans take to venues, the diesel that still powers a lot of staging, and the endless stream of T-shirts and vinyls cranked out to keep the business solvent. The question is not whether the industry can be sustainable in theory; it’s whether our rules, incentives, and day-to-day decisions actually measure up to the real sources of emissions.
Let’s start with the elephant in the room: audience travel. The non-profit REVERB’s 2025 analysis of 35,000 fans in the US and Canada found that fan travel creates 38 times more emissions than artist/crew travel, hotels, and gear haulage combined. Eighty percent of fans primarily drive, and a “typical” 10,858-cap arena show racks up approximately 527 tCO₂e from audience travel alone. That dwarfs what happens on stage.
On tour, Coldplay remains the highest-profile case study: the first two years of Music of the Spheres cut direct tour emissions by 59 per cent per show compared to their 2016–17 stadium shows, as verified by MIT. That gain came from cleaner power, lighter freight, better routing, train travel, fan incentives, and an unusually transparent dashboard everyone else can copy. It is not “net zero,” but it is measurable progress at stadium scale.
Policy is shifting too, especially in the EU. The EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) kicked in for the first cohort on FY2024 reports (published in 2025), forcing large companies to disclose standardized climate data. Its sibling, the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), came into force in July 2024 and requires in-scope companies to adopt climate transition plans aligned with 1.5°C (the target limit for global warming as outlined in the 2015 Paris Agreement). This means big European promoters, venue groups, and parent companies face strict reporting and planning requirements, and not just glossy pledges.
In the US, federal climate disclosure is in a state of limbo after the SEC paused its 2024 climate rule amid litigation and then stopped defending it in court in 2025. But California is moving ahead on its own: new laws (SB-253 and SB-261) will force thousands of large companies doing business in the state to publicly report their greenhouse gas emissions. Starting in 2026, companies must report their direct emissions (Scope 1 and 2), and by 2027, they’ll also need to include indirect emissions (Scope 3), along with climate-risk reports every two years. For music businesses that tour in California or sell products there, these rules will apply and make their environmental impact more transparent.
India’s approach is different: we do have national rules, but they cover parts of the problem. The Plastic Waste Management rules banned a specific list of single-use items from July 1, 2022. Meanwhile, the rules for Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), a policy to make manufacturers responsible for the complete lifecycle of their products, are tightening, particularly around plastic packaging. The Solid Waste Management Rules also make event organizers responsible for segregating waste and handing it over to authorized collectors. That’s progress on materials, even if enforcement varies by city.
In India, the top 1,000 listed companies must now file the SEBI Business Responsibility and Sustainability Report (BRSR) annually. Starting with the top 150 companies from FY 2023–24, a more detailed version called ‘BRSR Core’ is being phased in. Companies are required to report their direct emissions (Scope 1 and 2). Reporting emissions from their supply chains and other indirect sources (Scope 3) is encouraged but remains voluntary. That’s real pressure for listed conglomerates in music-adjacent services—but many Indian promoters are private, so live-music carbon numbers still rarely see the light of day.
There are bright spots on the ground. Bengaluru’s Echoes of Earth brands itself as India’s “greenest” festival and has scaled audience education and segregation. Magnetic Fields says it recycled or composted over 95 per cent of approximately 10.2 tonnes of waste in 2023 with sustainability firm SKRAP. Lollapalooza India has trialed hydration stations, rice-husk cups, and large volunteer crews for sorting. These are genuine improvements to material flows and on-site operations. The next step is to wrap them into transparent carbon accounting—especially for travel and power.
Power is where policy already bites. In Delhi-NCR, GRAP restrictions during severe air-quality episodes limit or ban diesel gensets for non-essential use, directly affecting temporary venues and outdoor shows. That nudges events toward grid connections, hybrid battery systems, and cleaner fuels when pollution spikes. It’s a public-health rule, not a climate rule, but it changes how shows are powered in India’s biggest media market.
Merch and formats matter more than we care to admit. A basic cotton T-shirt generates approximately 11.5 kg of CO₂e (depending on fiber and dyeing), with bulkier poly blends producing even more. Vinyl’s footprint is finally being benchmarked by the industry: a 2024 working report from pressing-plant associations shows why resin, energy, and packaging choices matter, challenging the “vinyl is a rounding error” myth. None of this says “stop selling shirts or records.” It says design for lower impact, cut overproduction, print closer to the fan, and tell people what you’re doing.
So, where does India stand compared to Europe and the U.S. in this matter?
Europe is moving from voluntary to mandatory. CSRD now standardizes climate reporting, CSDDD compels transition plans, and several countries are tightening single-use bans and reuse systems at venues. The US is more uneven: federal rules are stalled, but California’s SB-253 and SB-261 will soon set nationwide disclosure expectations, while grassroots groups like REVERB keep pressure on promoters to act. India has made visible gains through plastics regulation and corporate disclosure, but without sector-specific requirements, live music’s biggest emissions—travel, touring logistics, and power—remain largely unaddressed.
What would a pragmatic Indian playbook look like this season? The first step is to count what actually counts. Publishing a simple footprint per show or festival, with travel separated from on-site emissions, would bring much-needed transparency. Audience travel remains the hardest nut to crack, but solutions exist: bundling metro or bus passes with tickets, creating “rail plus entry” packages, pricing parking to reflect its true cost, and rewarding carpools or EVs. Power is another priority. With Delhi-NCR’s GRAP restrictions already limiting diesel gensets during pollution spikes, promoters should move towards grid tie-ins, hybrid battery towers, and cleaner fuels rather than scrambling at the last minute.
Other changes can happen on-site. Menus and materials matter more than organizers often admit: plant-forward catering can shrink footprints significantly, and reusable cup systems at scale have already proven effective. Merchandise needs to be rethought along the same lines—on-demand or local print runs, clear footprint disclosures, and evergreen lines that avoid fast-cycle waste. Even vinyl is now under scrutiny, with new industry-wide benchmarks showing how resin, energy, and packaging choices add up. Beyond operations, adopting standards like ISO 20121 (an international framework for sustainable event management) gives festivals a credible framework to ensure sustainability outlives individual staff or sponsor cycles. And even private promoters can mirror BRSR Core basics—Scope 1 and 2 data, Scope 3 boundaries, and annual notes that disclose grid factors. The throughline is simple: measure, publish, and direct decisions towards the real sources of emissions. India’s festivals have already made visible gains in terms of plastics and waste. The next frontier is travel, power, and honest accounting. If we get that right, we won’t need to call ourselves “green.” The numbers will do it for us.