Bike valets coming to a concert near you hopes Jack Johnson
Musician wants to help tour planners adopt environmentally sustainable practices
Jack Johnson may be famous for his laid-back beachside acoustic ballads but the environmental activist in him is tackling the impact touring is having on the planet. New efforts by the musician to expand a program that offsets the environmental impact of concerts may soon be coming to an event near you, including valet bike parking.
In 2014, Jack Johnson Bike Valet was launched to offer environmentally friendly fitness opportunities to event goers through a partnership with GreenFleet Hawaii. The initiative was the result of a study that showed the biggest impact music tours had on the planet came from the people who travelled to the shows. Fans driving to get to venues accounted for 80 to 90 per cent of the carbon emissions from concerts. Looking at the top 100 tours in the music industry, which sold about 50 million tickets for 46,000 concerts, fans travelled a total of 385 million kilometres to get there, emitting 58,000 metric tons of CO2.
Reflecting on whether to keep travelling the world to play music Johnson said, “I didn’t know if I needed to keep touring, especially when I considered the environmental impact of what I was doing.”
After his 2014 tour, Johnson’s not-for-profit All at Once reported on the results of its environmental initiatives claiming that 1,401 fans offset their carbon emissions onsite at shows and through an opt-in program equivalent to taking 172 cars off the road in one year. Since 2008, Jack Johnson has been encouraging fans to take alternate modes of transportation to his concerts. The bike valet parking is one of many of his efforts. It’s designed to provide a safe, fun and convenient way to commute by bike and have a secure place to park it. With the success of his formula to offset the environmental impact of his shows, Johnson wants to see more musicians and event organizers take similar steps.
Johnson and his wife are now working with agencies such as RPM to turn their tour-planning program into a model that other musicians and event organizers can use. That may mean bike valets will be at more than Jack Johnson shows.
