Radiohead to ship their gear by sea in 2008 after a carbon study

A study of two Radiohead tours of America puts most of their carbon footprint down to the audience. Colin Greenwood posted it on Dead Air Space, the band's blog, on Wednesday 19 December. Fans' travel and consumption made up 86 per cent of the footprint of a tour of city-centre theatres, and 97 per cent of an out-of-town tour of big gigs and amphitheatres. The fans' share rests on assumptions about how people get to the show and how much beer they drink once there.

Thom Yorke raised the carbon cost of fans driving to big outdoor shows last year. Earlier this year the band asked Best Foot Forward, an Oxford company, to measure the carbon and ecological footprints of the two tours, to see which kind does least harm for each person entertained.

Radiohead plan to tour again next year. For 2008 they will send their equipment to and from America by sea, which the post puts at 93 per cent more efficient than air freight, a saving of 47 tonnes of CO2. They will fly as little as possible, with no chartered flights, look at more efficient road and rail travel, and play city centres wherever they can because of the transport links.

Short of no-one coming to see us, we'd like to share with our fans some ways of reducing this

Colin Greenwood²

, Greenwood writes. At the big shows, raising the average car from 2.2 people to three would cut the tour's CO2 by 22 per cent, and one car user in ten switching to the bus by seven per cent. We're aware that this study is tentative and partial, but it's a start².