Being green is part of what I do because it's what I believe in, and it just plain makes sense.  I'm Adam Gardner and I play guitar and sing in the band Guster.  I started up the non-profit, Reverb, a few years back with my wife, Lauren Sullivan, a long-time environmentalist. I had been lamenting the not-so-stellar environmental impact of our Guster tours to Lauren, who had worked with musician Bonnie Raitt on some similar projects.

 

We came up with the idea of Reverb to educate and engage bands and their fans to promote environmental sustainability.

 

 

 

The project really started with Lauren's knowledge and me picking up the phone and calling some of my friends in bands that I knew felt the same way I did about their tours.  The first tour Reverb greened was Barenaked Ladies' and Alanis Morissette's "Au Natural" tour in 2004.

 

Being a touring musician myself, I bump into many bands on the road.  Whenever our conversations teeter into the environmental realm, Reverb is able to offer real solutions and the man-power to make it happen. We've helped green the tours for a range of artists and bands from  Dave Matthews Band, John Mayer and José Gonzalez to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Linkin Park, Beastie Boys and many more.

 

Whether they want to run their tour buses on alternative fuels, step up their recycling and waste reduction, go carbon neutral or just make sure they're selling and wearing eco-friendly merchandise, we're there to help.

 

Since 2004, we've greened 50 tours and 754 events, reduced over 38,000 tons of carbon dioxide, substituted over 265,000 gallons of biodiesel for conventional diesel, and reached over 5 million fans. Did you know that 80 percent of the carbon footprint associated with any tour comes from fans traveling to and from the show?!  

 

While we're helping bands and fans, we're also working with more than 1,500 environmental non-profits to promote their messages and campaigns. What's unique about Reverb is that we have one foot solidly in the environmental community and one foot solidly in the rock world.

 

For us, it's about getting the tens of thousands of fans like you that bands are reaching every night to do a little something in their lives, even if it's simply switching to a reusable water bottle. We're also encouraging carpooling so fans will reduce their carbon footprints. Concerts are a perfect place to do car sharing – you're all arriving and leaving at the same time. We're trying out cool stuff like giving primo parking spaces to DMB concertgoers who motor to the show with at least four in a car.

 

One of our Reverb Environmental Tour Managers, Josh Glasheen, just kicked off his summer on the 52-city Dave Matthews Band tour across the United States and Canada. He's helping out with keeping the tour green and setting up our Eco-Villages. They are like a little festival at each event that showcases green technologies, environmental non-profits, encourages fans to neutralize the carbon emissions from driving to the show, offers voter registration and things like that. Need to charge up your cell at the show – try the Village's solar charger.

 

Josh helps analyze every little nook and cranny of what it takes to put together a show on tour – like how much energy is expended for the lights and sound.  How much water is the venue using each night?  How can waste be reduced backstage? 

 

We know that people come to shows to see the band but maybe they also want to check out something totally unexpected, fresh and intriguing, like a car running on French Fry grease for instance. Well, Reverb crew member Elliott May also happens to be a Big Green Bus alum (AKA dumpster diving champion), so we try to get Grease Car and the BGB out to the concerts as much as possible. Did you know chinese buffet-style restaurants are notorious for having some of the best waste veggie oil?!

 

As for me, I had the honor of testifying before Congress last year, speaking with lawmakers about the importance of the right kind of biofuels and letting them know that there's a lot of people out there that have just earned the right to vote that care very passionately about this issue. The experience was even more nerve-wracking than playing on Leno, but it went well and I could see that many lawmakers truly care.

 

The truth is that I hope in five years enough folks like you will be doing something about the environment that there will be no need for Reverb.

 

But until then, being an agent of change is a natural fit for us. Welcome to our busy summer. Stay tuned for frequent updates from our Reverb staffers travelling on the Dave Matthews Band, John Mayer and Maroon 5 tours, as well as the happenings from Reverb HQ here in summer-friendly, tourist-happy Portland, Maine.

 

Travel with us (virtually here and at the Eco-Village  if you can come out to see a show we're greening), win cool stuff, find out how to volunteer (see our Action Requests!), check out what it's like to pump biodiesel or show us how you're promoting environmentalism through your own stories, photos and videos.

 

For us, it's all about a lot of people doing a little something, not just a few people doing everything.  So check it out here and join us, celebrate with us and help Reverb rock!

 

 

- Adam & the Reverb crew