Whatever your past feelings were about Chris Martin-fronted British rock band and Coldplay, I am here to inform you that actually, the band is good now.
Speaking with BBC News for an interview published Thursday, Martin said the band—best known for adult contemporary bangers like “Yellow” and “Fix You”—won’t be touring its latest album Everyday Life, adding that the band will be “taking time over the next year or two, to work out how our tour can not only be sustainable [but] how can it be actively beneficial.”
As BBC News noted, pinning down the exact carbon footprint of a tour—particularly for a band that tours at the scale of Coldplay—can be difficult. Variables to consider include not only power but the road and air travel for the band as well as attendees and the resources needed to manage waste produced at the show, among other factors. Martin acknowledged that a particularly difficult element for touring is the need for air travel, but listed shows free of single-use plastics and powered by solar as examples of the band’s hopes for a future tour.
Reached for comment by email, Coldplay manager Dave Holmes told Gizmodo in a statement that the band has “become increasingly mindful of our touring’s impact on the planet” and that plans for a more environmentally friendly tour have been in the works for years.
“We started making significant plans to improve this scenario while we were still on the road in 2017,” Holmes said. “For the last couple of years, we’ve been meeting with environmental organizations and charities with the ultimate goal of making our touring footprint carbon neutral. These plans factor in the footprint generated by our fans’ travel requirements—which we hope to reduce through subsidized public transport and ride-sharing schemes. We also plan to invest in environmental projects that go well beyond carbon offsetting.”
Rather than touring, the band will be livestreaming a pair of shows in Amman, Jordan, to mark the release of the band’s new double album. The band will also be playing a one-off show next week in the UK at the Natural History Museum in London. According to a notice for the show on the band’s website, Coldplay will be donating all proceeds from the event to environmental law charity ClientEarth. When it does get back to touring in earnest, Martin said the band is aiming high.
“Our next tour will be the best possible version of a tour like that environmentally,” Martin told BBC News. “We would be disappointed if it’s not carbon neutral.
Reader, I regret to inform you that we have no choice but to stan.