Happy Earth Day 2026! Sustainable Touring Resource Guide

There are countless ways to make everyday life – and the day-to-day operations of a tour or festivals – more sustainable.

The Music Sustainability Alliance (MSA) operates under the core belief that working together across all sectors creates the kind of systemic change needed to propel the music industry toward a sustainable future. The 501c3 industry alliance provides scalable, accessible solutions, including its Music Industry Resource Guide, available via musicsustainability.org, that provides an aggregation of tools, service providers, and vendors that support sustainability goals.

How The Trump Administration’s Anti-Green Policies Are Affecting Sustainability At Live Venues

As part of Pollstar’s previous Earth Day content, MSA generously put together a print version of the resource guide for our readers as a sampling of the full online database. This year, Pollstar is updated the guide with input from GOAL.

GOAL (Green Operations & Advanced Leadership), is a sustainability network for live event venues, founded in 2021 in partnership between Oak View Group (Pollstar‘s parent company), Fenway Sports Group, the Atlanta Hawks, and Jason F. McLennan.

Guest Post: Nature Is Nonpartisan’s Benji Backer On Why Protecting Planet Shouldn’t Be Political

GREEN TOURING GUIDES & RIDERS:

BYOBottle Resources:
BYOBottle’s resources provide riders and guides that are designed to help artists, agents and production managers communicate with venues and business partners on sustainable action items.

Green Touring Guide
The Green Touring Guide features tools for reducing the carbon footprint of a tour and how this can be communicated without being suspected of “greenwashing.”

Julie’s Bicycle Green Rider
This rider provides ideas for “green” clauses for inclusion either in a standalone Green Rider or as part of your tech or hospitality riders.

The Making Waves Guide to Plastic-Free Festival Events:
The Making Waves Guide is a free resource published by RAW Foundation on more sustainable events.

LEADING CHANGE ORGANIZATIONS, NETWORKS, & COALITIONS

BYOBottle Campaign
BYOBottle’s Campaign engages artists, venues, festivals, and fans to reduce plastic waste.

DJs for Climate Action
DJs for Climate Action’s goal is to harness the influence of Dance Music and DJ Culture to power climate solutions and generate action.

Earth/Percent
Earth/Percent is a charity providing a simple way for the music industry to support the most impactful organizations addressing the climate emergency.

GOAL
The GOAL Program convenes live entertainment venue leaders together to get recognition, share stories, and engage on all topics related to sustainability in the industry.

Music Declares Emergency
Music Declares Emergency is a group of artists, music industry professionals and organizations that stand together to declare a climate emergency.

Music Sustainability Alliance
MSA is a nonprofit that provides unbiased and well-researched solutions, networking, and tools for operational systemic change.

We Are Still In
We Are Still In is a joint declaration of support for climate action, signed by more than 3,900 CEOs, mayors, governors, college presidents, and others.

CASE STUDIES & RESOURCES

Power Delivery: A Guide for Clean Energy at Live Events
A guide created by Music Sustainability Association’s Renewable Energy and Power Solutions working group participants.

Powered by GOAL: Pioneering The Next Era Of Sustainable LIve Events
A case study of four nights of Manchester, England’s Co-Op Live hosting Billie Eilish.

Music Climate Revolution: Sustainable Merch
REVERB’s Responsible Merch Guide includes five key decisions for making merch and physical music fans love — with lower impact, along with a supplier directory and a comprehensive guide covering materials, production, distribution and marketing.

FOOD DONATION PARTNERS

Musically Fed
Musically Fed is a nonprofit organization founded in 2016 by Insight Mgmt’s Maria Brunner that works to mobilize the music industry in the fight against hunger by working with artists, promoters, management and venues nationwide to donate unused backstage meals to community organizations that feed people facing homelessness and food insecurity. The Phoenix-based nonprofit has provided meals to over 815,000 in need.

Support+ Feed
Support + Feed is a nonprofit founded in 2020 by Maggie Baird, mother of Grammy Award-winning artists Billie Eilish and Finneas, that’s committed to mitigating climate change and increasing food security by driving global demand, acceptance and accessibility of plant-based food. The organization has partnered with 200+ community organizations, supported 150+ local and minority-owned restaurants and provided over 2.2 million plant-based meals and pantry items.

SERVICE PROVIDERS & NONPROFITS:

Effect Partners
Effect Partners works with musicians, artists and inspired brands to accelerate climate positive solutions.

Global Inheritance
Global Inheritance is a nonprofit organization working to reinvent activism and empower individuals to seek a global balance, focusing on the power of creativity to drive progressive social change.

Hope Solutions
Hope Solutions is one of the UK’s leading sustainability consultants and have long been at the forefront of bringing about change.

Ocean Conservancy
Ocean Conservancy unites science, people and policy to protect our ocean, today and for generations to come. The nonprofit teamed with GOAL in 2025 for the “Protect Where We Play Tour,” a partnership across GOAL’s network of venues to reduce plastic waste by deploying a reusable cup program during concerts and sporting events.

REVERB
Uniting around the music we love, tackling the environmental and social issues we face, REVERB is a nonprofit dedicated to empowering millions of individuals to take action.

Why Hunger
Why Hunger invests in the many community-led solutions and social movements that are nourishing people and the planet in order to transform the current food system into one rooted in equity.

For more resources, check out MSA’s resource database at https://www.musicsustainability.org/resource-hub
And visit https://goalstandard.com/partnerships for a list of GOAL’s vetted partners.