Pollstar Live 2026: Where Music Meets Mission, Featuring Adam Gardner

Never underestimate the power of love. Attendees at the “Where Music Meets Mission” Rainmaker panel at Pollstar Live! got to hear the origin story of how Guster guitarist/vocalist Adam Gardner co-founded nonprofit environmental organization REVERB, born out of a love for protecting the environment – and making sure his then environmentalist girlfriend Lauren Sullivan, now his wife and co-founder of REVERB, stayed in love with him.  

The panel was moderated by Kristen Fulmer, who serves as Global Head of Sustainability at GOAL and Oak View Group (Pollstar’s parent company), and who also happens to be a fan of the alternative rock band. 

During the conversation, Gardner reflected on how he was starting to see the difference between how he was living at home with Sullivan and the amount of waste produced from touring. 

“The lights come up [after a show] and you have to make your way through a pile of plastic on the ground, everyone’s idling in their cars, waiting an hour to get out of the lot. It’s just a mess,” Gardner said. “And it’s not how I was living at home as I was trying to make sure my girlfriend stayed in love with me – she’s an environmentalist and I was doing what an environmentalist does because I didn’t want her to think I was a jerk. I started seeing this is not at all how we live at home. … We were nicknaming our tour bus the Earth Eater and it felt wrong.” 

Guster was opening for acts like Dave Matthew’s Band, John Mayer and Maroon 5, who were having similar conversations as Gardner, frustrated with the environmental impact of touring.

Gardner explains that Sullivan, who was then working for Rainforest Action Network, encouraged Gardner to do something to take action – while noting that she was also frustrated that at the time in the late ’90s that the environment movement seemed to just be for the stereotypical crunchy, granola-type folks and wasn’t reaching out to the mainstream.

Enter REVERB. Inspired by Bonnie Raitt and her manager, Kathy Kane, and how they had put on the earth-friendly “Green Highway” tour, Gardner notes that the duo became “massive mentors” and the “Green Highway” became the model for REVERB. 

“The model is to make the tour green so it’s a living breathing example of what sustainability looks like,” Gardner says – from power for the show courtesy of wind or solar, to no plastics backstage and free water stations for fans.  

After initially founding REVERB in 2004 as a project of Raitt’s ARIA Foundation, it grew into its own 501c3 organization. REVERB’s early partners were Dave Matthews Band, Jack Johnson, Maroon 5, John Mayer and Barenaked Ladies and the nonprofit continues to work with the acts to this day, along with tons of other artists, with over 350 tours greened.

In the past 22 years, REVERB has neutralized 420,000 metric tons of CO2E, raised over $21 million for environmental causes and supported more than 6,100 nonprofits, with volunteers contributing over 210,000 hours. The nonprofit’s #RockNRefill program, a partnership between REVERB and Nalgene, has raised over $2 million for nonprofits and eliminated 4.5 million single-use plastic bottles since 2013.  

For those wanting to get involved, Gardner says, “We meet people where they’re out, whether they’re a venue, artist, fan – anybody. For us our philosophy is that we need many hands to turn the wheel. It’s not all or nothing. If you give people that choice, they’ll choose nothing.” He adds, “Many people doing something is going to net way more than a few people doing everything.”

When artists get involved with a cause, it often helps their fans feel closer to their favorite bands because of it. And another plus – going green is often just the nice choice, rather than just being the right thing to do.

“As you’re building what you build in your corners of live music, think about, is there a better way? And there usually is, if you’re thinking about waste, carbon or a better experience,” Gardner says. “The reality is, some of the solutions are just better … Reusable stuff is just nicer. … Not having a generator buzzing and spewing smoke is really nice, for example. There are solutions for some of the things you might see and certainly REVERB is here to help.”  

Visit https://reverb.org/ for more information.