The Academic Eco-Warrior Quantifier: MIT’s John Fernández On Coldplay, Live Biz & Why Carbon Offsets Were ‘Mostly Garbage’ Until Recently

For Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor John E. Fernández, Professor John E. Fernández — who heads up the university’s Environmental Solutions Initiative (ESI), and who is certifying Coldplay’s sustainability efforts on Pollstar’s Q1 chart-topping “Music of the Spheres Tour,” working with Live Nation and Warner Music Group on a study to better quantify, analyze and ameliorate live’s carbon usage and who recently appeared at the first Music Sustainability Alliance Conference — his work with the music industry represents something of a full-circle moment. 

“I was very much on the conservatory track and all of that,” says Professor Fernández when asked about his years studying piano at Interlochen. “I decided I wanted to go to a real university because I had a bunch of friends who became musicians, who were older than me, and one of the things you realize about going to conservatories is that it’s very vocational. I had a lot of interest in math and science and I figured I’d always be able to play the piano, but I wanted to do other things.”

Those other things would come to include studying at MIT, Princeton and Columbia (where he studied the lofty topic of “thermodynamics, inorganic and organic chemistry”). As brilliant and learned as Fernández is, it was ultimately a British EDM act that brought him back into the music fold.

“I got involved because we started working with Above & Beyond in the UK,” Fernández says of the British electronic dance trio of Jono Grant, Tony McGuinness and Paavo Siljamäki.  “One of my graduate students, who’s now a research scientist at MIT (DJ Nourey, a.k.a. Norhan Bayomi) is actually a signed artist with their management, The Involved Group. We started talking to them because Above & Beyond have a very intense fan base, which is all about doing good in the world. They’re very interested in climate change and sustainability and we started working with them.” 

Fernández and his team worked on several projects with the group, going to festivals, giving climate change talks and having Above & Beyond’s Tony McGuiness visit MIT. Through A&B, they got in touch with Hope Solutions, a company that consults for the music industry on climate change matters and works with Coldplay. As Hope Solutions was gathering data on the “Spheres Tour,” they asked Fernández and his team for an impartial third-party assessment to verify the group’s methodology and results. 

“I’m actually in the middle of my second assessment of Coldplay’s recent tour,” Professor Fernández explains. “The first assessment only had data for the first part of the tour. They just asked me, ‘Can you do the whole tour now that we have all the data?’ So I just got that data last week and am in the middle of doing the assessment.” 

Fernández says the data is getting much better today than it was even a couple of years ago. “Coldplay has obviously made this a big part of who they are, so they’ve made a big effort to collect data. The data I got last week is much better than the data I got for the first assessment. The fact is, live music is operating within a data-scarce environment. That’s not unique to the music industry.”

Fernández goes on to explain the “three scopes” by which scientists quantify carbon emissions. The first scope is carbon emissions made directly by a person or organization; the second scope is by electricity bought off the grid; and the third scope is everything used to produce a product or put on a tour which is much more difficult to quantify. 

“Live music is in the same situation that every other industry sector is in that they don’t really know much about scope three,” Fernández says. “The reality is for most industry sectors, the vast majority of carbon emissions is in scope three like 60%-70%, sometimes even 80% of carbon emissions. We’re working in a data-scarce environment, but the data is getting better. For example, The Coldplay tour now has really excellent data on their freight transport because the company they hired keeps really, really good data on what it takes to move their equipment. So they have enough data now to be able to establish credible greenhouse gas emissions for their tours.”

When asked about the inexact science of carbon offsets, which can vary greatly, Fernández says the science is legitimate but some of the key players are not. “The science is very well established, the business is another question,” he says. “The business of carbon offsets has been full of bad actors. Secondly, it does not have a great enforcement system in place. The science is very well documented. We know really well if you plant a tree, how much carbon it is going to capture. Two things to say about carbon offsets: up until recently, carbon offsets have delivered almost zero emissions for which they were purchased. In other words, they’re basically, up until recently, mostly garbage—and you can quote me on that. They have not been an effective way of reducing carbon emissions and in fact, have created some really negative unintended consequences and some climate justice issues in developing countries. 

“It’s well known in the peer-reviewed literature because there’ve been a number of studies analyzing the offsets that have been purchased and again, my qualifier, is up until recently it was the Wild West. Most carbon offsets are in the voluntary market…There have been a number of research studies, really good, high quality, peer-reviewed research studies showing that’s the case. But because of that, there is now a significant momentum in improvement.” 

Part of that improvement will be bolstered by a study MIT’s ESI is conducting commissioned by Live Nation, Warner Music Group and Coldplay that will help better quantify the music industry’s carbon footprint in the U.K. and the U.S. Due in July, the study will suggest “practical solutions to reduce the environmental impact of live music events at every level, from pubs and clubs to stadiums.” 

While quantifying carbon emissions and finding solutions to reduce and offset, seems difficult at best, Fernández is confident his team can help. “What’s required is just a better connection between the data collecting, getting better data and putting it into results that are actionable by artists, promoters and everyone else — and that’s actually not that difficult. Believe me, I work in a lot of other industries. We work with mining, we do natural climate solutions, we do all sorts of things, and the music industry is fragmented. It is complicated, but it’s absolutely doable.”