As part of his 2021 Australian and New Zealand ‘BACK’ tour, Minchin, his touring party and crew took actions to minimise the environmental impact of the tour where possible, including upcycling merchandise, developing a green rider, and encouraging fans to engage within local communities to create sustainable, environmental change in their own backyard.  

Minchin’s ‘Greening’ initiative, in association with Live Nation and Ticketmaster, have produced a video and some recommendations based on key learnings and evolving practice. 

Watch the video below:

One key initiative included a day planting Indigenous trees at Lot 50-Kanyanyapilla, a bi-cultural biodiversity regeneration project near McLaren Vale, an hour south of Adelaide, South Australia

Minchin, alongside 12 of his crew, planted 20 different indigenous woodland, swamp edge and sedgeland species to rebuild habitat and biodiversity in the area which is an ancient Kaurna Meyunna campground.

Being kinder to the environment requires a whole spectrum of responses, from adjustments in government policy right down to personal actions. Our goal was three-pronged: we wanted to try to reduce our carbon footprint, we wanted to learn more about carbon neutral practices, and we wanted to share our learning with our audience and the broader industry. The BACK Greening project has actually been really good fun, and goes some way to relieving my carbon guilt, which is in my top ten guilts,” says Minchin

In conjunction with Live Nation and Ticketmaster, Minchin enlisted the help of Sustainability Consultant, Beatrice Jeavons across tour. The team worked with a number of environmental organisations, including EcoCaddy, Bio-R and Common Ground to learn more about climate change and be part of the solutions. 

We have started the journey across the BACK tour and it’s all still a work in progress. So many incredible people and orgnisations are tackling the climate crisis head on. By engaging in these local, grass roots activities we are striving to reduce the tour’s footprint but also educate ourselves and the community on the importance of these kinds of initiatives and how people can get involved in their own backyard,says Jeavons

Since the launch of Green Nation in 2019, Live Nation events and venues around the globe have introduced environmentally friendly practices to foster a culture of sustainability and lower carbon emissions.

Other sustainable initiatives across the Live Nation and Ticketmaster businesses include, at Live Nation’s Spark Arena in Auckland (NZ), all food waste is composted outside of the city and sold to local Kiwi growers, enhancing local employment and skilling while combating food waste. Similar initiatives have been enforced in the UK and US, where venues across Europe and the US have eliminated single-use plastics.

At Ticketmaster, the company has driven the shift towards digital tickets which plays an important role in reducing waste associated with the printing of paper-based tickets.

Live Nation is committed to evolving low-carbon and regenerative practices across our tours, venues and festivals. It is a pleasure to see the practices adopted and the learnings from Tim and his team. We recognise too that this is an ongoing process and the more we can learn and see similar initiatives across the industry, the greater the lasting impact on sustainability and the environment,” says Roger Field, President of Live Nation Asia Pacific.

For more information on Tim Minchin’s ‘Greening’ initiative, head here.