Latest Articles by Dan Hancox

Celebrity culture goes green?

Dan Hancox — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 14:53:00 +0000

Hollywood film stars all live lavish, environmentally destructive lifestyles, right? Wrong, say the celebrity spotters at Ecorazzi. Dan Hancox talks to the green gossip bloggers, and finds out how cutting carbon became cool.

Fame is a global currency. Celebrity culture fascinates people the world over, and the behaviour of famous actors, singers, musicians, and TV presenters is scrutinised in microscopic detail for our amusement – what are they wearing? What are they eating? What are they driving? Who are they dating? People want to know the answers to these questions because they look up to their favourite rock star or actor: “if Madonna is drinking carrot juice and doing yoga, maybe I can look like her if I do the same.”

In the late summer of 2006, Rebecca Carter and Michael d’Estries, two enthusiastic environmentalists from the US, noticed two trends exploding at once: first, that celebrities were all clamouring to jump on the green bandwagon (a bandwagon that uses biofuel, of course). Secondly, that celebrity gossip websites were some of the most popular in the world, drawing huge amounts of internet traffic. So it was that www.ecorazzi.com was born, the world’s first site to concentrate exclusively on “green gossip.”

Since launching in September 2006, Ecorazzi has acquired more than 500,000 global visitors, drawn in by its exclusive news and humourous style. As the word has spread, more enthusiastic green-celebrity spotters have joined the Ecorazzi team, including special “field reporters” on the red carpets of L.A. and New York, and writers from Canada to the Philippines.

chinadialogue got in touch with the site’s co-founders to find out who’s hot and who’s not in the world of eco-friendly celebrities. They certainly gave us the “green carpet” treatment…

chinadialogue: If you were to award prizes right now, who would be your greenest three celebrities and why?

Rebecca Carter: There are so many celebs doing such a great job right now. And there are many that are probably being so quiet about it that we have no idea. Actor Ed Begley Jr. has been a leader for years on this topic, and it has finally become fashionable. I can't get away without mentioning Leonardo DiCaprio [film star and director of forthcoming environmental movie The 11^th Hour], who is also a leader in bringing attention to the environment. I'm also really impressed with [film star] Daryl Hannah's "walking the walk" and educating the public at the same time.

Photo of Daryl Hannah by RavenU

Michael d’Estries: I like to use "green" to also cover people making a difference for the world -- whether through humanitarian works, charity, or the environment. In that case, I would consider [film stars] George Clooney for his work in Darfur, Woody Harrelson for his environmental initiatives, and Orlando Bloom for offering a "practical" lifestyle of living green while having fun.

cd: Conversely, which celebrities have been most disappointing recently – i.e. who presented an eco-friendly image, but got busted for poor practices?

RC: I was really disappointed with Liz Hurley recently: the actress that was quitting to become an organic farmer was something out of an Ecorazzi dream. A few months later she had the most environmentally destructive wedding that one could imagine. That was a real shocker to us all. [Hurley and husband, software tycoon Arun Nayar, embarked on a series of lavish celebrations across India, at one point covering an entire fort in decorative lights.]

MD: [Film star] John Travolta is a bit of an enigma. I personally really enjoy him as a person, but his actions lately towards the environment have been highly hypocritical. The guy owns several 727 Jumbo Jets – which has always been a point of criticism for environmentalists. Just recently, however, Travolta lectured people on taking to task changes they can make in their lives to stop global warming. All the while, he's flying these massive planes, releasing obscene amounts of emissions, and burning fossil fuels.

cd: Have you had any feedback from celebrities who are especially pleased or upset with their write-ups?

MD: Our site has received positive talk throughout Hollywood; mainly because it's one of the few sites actually talking about celebrities in this light. We don't often point fingers or put people down unless there are serious reasons to do so.

Photo by Kokogiak

cd: Do you think celebrities should be “greener than green”? Or are we all a little hypocritical about the way we treat the environment?

RC: Celebrities are just people. I know people that are über-green, and people that throw their cigarette butts on the street. It's the same with celebrities. We can say that celebrities have a responsibility to be a role model, but really, don't we all?

MD: In my opinion, everyone is a hypocrite. What's positive is that 90% of the celebs out there are making genuine changes to their own lifestyles. It may be as simple as riding around in a Prius [the world’s first mass-produced hybrid car] – but attention is paid to these people and even little touches of green can inspire many people to follow.

cd: Do you think environmentalism is finally becoming “cool”? Are celebrities playing a role in this?

RC: Yes, environmentalism is cool right now. It's a bit of a concern that it's so cool: it might cool off too quickly. Celebrities always have and always will play a role in bringing awareness to issues, and if you read Ecorazzi, you can see that there are hundreds of them that are doing a great job.

MD: Celebrities are definitely doing a great job of making green "cool". After all, they're kings and queens of entertainment – they know how to reach out there and make people pay attention. Furthermore, they wield a great deal of clout when it comes to bringing important issues into the spotlight of mainstream culture. I remember someone telling me that all the marketing money in the world dulls in comparison to grabbing the endorsement of one celebrity.

cd: Do you think fans should boycott or pressure their favourite bands/actors/etc into being more environmentally friendly? There are still an awful lot of private jets about right?

RC: There are an awful lot of private jets around. Celebs will say that sometimes it's necessary. Maybe it is – I don't have the kind of schedule these guys have. Of course, we all should fly commercial, but look at your fave bands and celebs and see what they are doing in their lives. How many homes do they have? What kind of cars do they drive? Do they seem to do everything over the top? I don't know about boycotting. I think people are fans of celebrities that they typically admire, and if you find that your favourite actor isn't really leading a responsible life, then maybe they aren't your favourite anymore.

cd: Do you have future plans for the site? It seems to be growing at an exponential rate and getting a lot of attention – it must take up a lot of your time as it is!

RC: There are always future plans! There is so much we want to do in terms of multimedia, and we'll get there little by little. We also signed with a production company a few months ago and hope to bring Ecorazzi.TV to a television station near you! It's currently being shopped around.

MD: We really want to keep expanding our coverage and providing that alternative angle to awards events and after-parties. The past few months have been excellent steps for us because we've finally gained a large enough reputation as a media outlet to get access to the red carpet for many high-profile events. Our hopes are to continue to incorporate more video, audio, and any other fun interactive features we can come up with. Our overall mission will remain: to inspire, entertain, and inform.

cd: Ecorazzi, we salute you.

Dan Hancox is a London-based journalist and blogger, writing for The Guardian, New Statesman, The Word, and a variety of music blogs.

Rebecca Carter is also the founder and editor of environmental blog, Greener Miami

Michael d’Estries is thefounder and editor of the popular online eco-magazine, Groovy Green.

Homepage photo by James@mannequindisplays.com

Taking the first step

Dan Hancox — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 12:21:00 +0000

On July 7 this year, the Live Earth rock concerts will be held on all seven continents. They aim to promote awareness of global warming, but can music really change the world? Dan Hancox talks to their official spokesman, Yusef Robb.

Can rock concerts change the world? It is a question that was asked repeatedly last summer when “Live 8” asked for a mass movement to fight global poverty. This time around the question being asked is “can rock concerts save the world?”

On July 7 this year (07/07/07) concerts on all seven continents will be held to promote global awareness of climate change, and kick off “a multimedia mass persuasion campaign.” Pop stars from Madonna to Shakira, from The Police to Snoop Dogg will perform at concerts held from Shanghai to Rio de Janeiro.

I spoke to Live Earth’s official spokesperson Yusef Robb about reducing the event’s carbon footprint, educating rock stars – and changing the day-to-day behaviour of the entire world…

chinadialogue: How do you see the Live Earth concerts pushing the green agenda forward in the music industry?

Yusef Robb: We not only want Live Earth to drive people to be a part of the solution, we want the concerts themselves to be part of the solution. We are ensuring that Live Earth will have as low a carbon footprint as possible. We hope that the protocols we develop and follow in Live Earth will form a blueprint for future live events around the world.

cd: And presumably this is why you’ve launched the ‘Green Event Standard’, to set a benchmark for future concerts?

YR: That’s right. People think of live events as one-offs, but of course they’re happening everywhere every day – maybe the circus is in town today but not tomorrow, but it’s going to be in another town, and something else is going to be in its spot.

cd: How will this work in practice?

YR: Working side-by-side with our production staff are “sustainability engineers.” So when the stage producer says “we need x watts of power,” the sustainability engineer finds solutions for on-site power generation, or sources green power produced by the sun or the wind. Another example might be that the stage designer says “I want these wonderful-looking purple lights”, to which the sustainability engineer steps up and says “well here’s a different kind of light bulb that uses less energy.”

But we’re covering a broad spectrum. We’re encouraging people to take mass transit to our shows, looking at how we power and light our shows, looking at what containers our concessions will be served in… we’re trying to “design out” the carbon from every aspect of our production. As a last resort we will offset [using “carbon offsets” such as tree-planting]. The reality is you can’t completely zero the carbon out, otherwise we’d all stay at home.

Our first priority is to design out the use of carbon in our concerts: carbon offsets are great, but we believe they should only be used when there’s no other alternative. For example, we’re not going to sail from Los Angeles to the London show; we’re going to be taking an airplane because there is no other alternative. So we’ll be offsetting that travel. But in a choice between an incandescent light bulb and a compact fluorescent light bulb, we’ll be going for the latter.

cd: You mentioned “sustainability engineers” earlier: do you think this kind of job description is one that is going to become more common? I doubt there was such a thing as a “sustainability engineer”10 or 20 years ago!

YR: I think it’s great that Live Earth is creating this kind of job description: there will now be people with expertise in rock and roll stage lighting that is kind to the environment – that’s a pretty niche role! And we want to have people all across the world, from all walks of life, to do just as the artists have done: stand up and say “this is a priority to me” – and also to force the corporations they do business with, and the governments that represent them, to take the steps we need.

It’s rather ridiculous, we think, that we’re using essentially the same internal combustion engine as we were in 1900. The same goes for the light bulbs we’re using. So what we want to do is get this massed group of people to stand up and say “this is important to me” and the markets will respond.

cd: What materials are being prepared to go alongside the “entertainment” side of Live Earth?

YR: As well as the book by David de Rothschild [“The Live Earth Global Warming Survival Handbook”], there will be lots of information and materials available on the web – lots of it coming from our NGO partners. The Alliance for Climate Protection is really a consortium of many organisations.

We’re also working with an organisation that produces official school curricula for thousands and thousands of schools around the world, and we’re working with them to develop curricula around the climate crisis, which we think is a great way to reach kids but also to reach their parents.

cd: How are you communicating this message to the artists performing at Live Earth? Will you be gently advising them not to take their entourages in extra private jets to the shows, for example?

YR: We’re working closely with our artists in providing them with information and tips on how they themselves can reduce their carbon footprints. Live Earth is not only going to be inspiring people around the world, but also the people we’re working directly with – whether that be artists, or our corporate partners, who are pledging to enact environmental measures. That also extends to our staff here at Live Earth: we’re now using recycled paper for our press releases, we’re using reusable cups at the water cooler, new light bulbs in the office.

We really want this to be a starting point for everybody. We’re not interested in throwing stones at past sins, we’re looking for people’s commitments to moving forward.

cd: If these concerts are supposed to see the initiation of a global movement – as has often been said – how do you foresee the movement developing after the dust settles following the 7 July concerts?

YR: We see it as a multimedia mass-persuasion campaign. Live Earth is about bringing together a huge group of people, and engaging them in actions against global warming. And once someone’s taken that first step – i.e. Live Earth – people need to be reminded to take a second step, third step, and so on. And that’s what Al Gore’s group, the Alliance for Climate Protection, will do.

cd: So they will pick up the baton after 7 July?

YR: Exactly. And they will use some of the same messaging and branding and music from Live Earth to ensure that there’s continuity in that message. So just as Coca-Cola has its ‘message’ on television adverts, billboards, websites, radio ads… so will this mass persuasion campaign: Save Our Selves has commissioned 60 short films about the issues; we have a book coming out; obviously there is the music and television from the Live Earth concerts; and we’ve also commissioned global public service announcements for TV and radio with celebrities.

Live Earth is the kick-off party for an ongoing campaign. So maybe on 7 July the call to action will be quite simple: “change your light bulb”, or “adjust your thermostat” – things like that. But making that first step opens you up to taking that second step. Think about it in rock and roll terms, The Beatles are a perfect example: when they started they were making poppy music for 12-year-old girls, and six years later they’re hardcore – hanging out with Ravi Shankar, taking god-knows-what and making full-on rock and roll. You get a little bit of a taste, you take the first step – and the next thing you know you’re barrelling down the highway. And that’s what Live Earth’s about: getting people to take that first step.

Dan Hancox is a London-based journalist and blogger, writing for The Guardian, New Statesman, The Word, and a variety of music blogs.

Homepage photo by Gaetan Lee

Power chords

Dan Hancox — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 15:13:00 +0000

A lot of energy goes into making a hit record – and some of that is the greenhouse gas-producing kind. Dan Hancox investigates the carbon cost of the music industry, and talks to the director of Europe’s first solar-powered recording studio.

The Live Earth concerts, to be held on July 7, have brought the debate about energy consumption in the music industry right to the fore. It is a long process that takes a musician from strumming the opening chords of a new song until the CD is sitting in shops, available for us to buy. Moreover, it is a process with a carbon footprint that sounds a “THUD” like a dinosaur from the film Jurassic Park. There is a vast amount of heavy duty, energy-sapping technology used in the modern music industry.

One recent piece of research by the Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Management (ECCM) confirms this with some shocking facts. Industry sources estimate that 1.6 million copies of British band Radiohead’s “Hail to the Thief” album were produced. The ECCM calculated this venture created a whopping 2,192 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) in producing the raw materials, manufacturing and distributing the CDs. In fact, this one album produced the same amount of CO2 the average British person would produce if they were alive for 233 years; and it would take the average Chinese person 685 years to do the same.

Steps towards introducing sustainable energy use into the music industry are clearly long overdue. But away from the celebrity buzz of the Live Earth concerts, one studio in London is already on the case. Premises Studio is home to Europe’s first fully solar-powered recording studio, powered by 18 photovoltaic panels on the studio’s roof. Furthermore, “Studio A” was built with an amazing array of recycled materials, from the 100 car tyres underneath the floor to the double-backed ultra-thick doors (which were previously owned by oil company Enron, of all people). The studio is so well-insulated that it doesn’t require heating!

I went along to see Europe’s most sustainable studio in all its glory, and got the low-down from studio director Nathan Hale.

chinadialogue: The first and most obvious question about solar power is how do you manage to generate power to run the studio when it’s a wet, grey day in north London?

Nathan Hale: We have non-solar power as well, and all the energy generated by the solar panels feeds into our general grid and is stored there. On days when it’s very sunny you get an excess of power – more than you actually use -- and it’s saved up for rainy days. We’ve done all the calculations and over a year it evens out, so that the solar power generated supplies all of the needs of Studio A, our sustainable studio.

cd: How did you get started with creating the ‘sustainable studio’?

NH: We had to calculate how many panels we would need to meet our consumption. We can monitor how much it’s generating, but it’s basically self-reliant now it’s set up: the system is self-cleaning and maintains itself.

The insulation is important too – the temperature in Studio A stays pretty stable at 22 degrees, and if we need air conditioning, that all comes out of the solar-powered bit of our energy grid as well. The walls are all about two feet thick, and the windows are all double-double-glazed, or at least triple-glazed.

So many different bits of the studio’s design were really thought about. Just the fact that we have an unusually high number of windows to the room – getting away from that idea of the dark, dank recording studio in a basement -- means that fewer lights have to be used, and therefore less power is consumed.

cd: Recycling materials seems to have been integral to the studio’s design as well.

NH: That’s right. A lot of the major fittings are taken from reclaim yards [the kind of places that furniture and fittings go to die] – this extremely heavy door was the front door to a bank. We wanted a door with very thick glass, so what kind of place would have that kind of door? Obviously, a bank.

Another advantage of this approach is that you can save a lot of money on paying for new fittings, without compromising on quality. If you’re very particular and specific about what you want that makes it a lot easier to track the right stuff down.

cd: Is that how you came across the “Enron door”?

NH: That’s right. It’s a weird twist of fate that a door being used by an oil company ended up in our sustainable studio! This door probably weighs as much as our grand piano; it is basically a 400 kilogram door. We knew we wanted a heavy door though, and just decided the easiest way was to take two reasonably heavy doors, fit them together and then soundproof it.

Playing music is one of the most heavily energy-consumptive activities you can take part in. In the first five months of this year we saved 1,934kg of carbon by using solar power and cutting down on energy usage with insulation and design.

cd: Is this kind of project a “loss-leader”: something that costs a lot of money upfront, but makes up for it by garnering good publicityand a buzz in the music industry because it’s a novelty?

NH: It will take us 10 years to get to the point where we’ve “zeroed” on the investment. But in terms of long-term investments, it’s one of the soundest investments you can make. It was a big outlay, but it will repay itself easily, and before too long. Obviously it also gives us an extra selling point in terms of getting artists in, because they are increasingly aware of their carbon footprints – even ignoring all the flights around the world musicians make, record production is a harmful beast.

The Premises Studio is used to having superstar musicians and bands pass through all the time, but one recent visit from British rock star Johnny Borrell (of the band Razorlight - pictured above at the studio) was particularly special: Borrell recorded a new song for Friends of the Earth’s “The Big Ask” campaign to combat climate change (available to download here). In a statement Friends of the Earth Director Tony Juniper explained that more people should be following The Premises’ lead:

"The Premises solar-powered recording studio highlights just one of the ways we can tackle climate change. The studio is a one off - we need many more homes and businesses to follow suit if we are going to make the cuts in carbon dioxide emissions that are needed."

With over 70 recording studios in London alone, it boggles the mind to think how much carbon could be saved if this progressive thinking on sustainable energy became more common. Before I left the Premises, I asked Nathan why he thought there weren’t more carbon-neutral studios around. He said the problem is often that recording studios rent, rather than own their own buildings, and they are not in a position to make long-term changes to their properties such as installing solar panels.

Nonetheless, environmental enthusiasm is a growing force in the music industry – and the financial incentives are clear for all to see. If someone can work out how to sidestep the issue of a lack of studio property-ownership, maybe this will not be the only solar-powered studio in London for long. And wouldn’t that be an achievement to shout (and sing) about: a music industry that actually put its money where its mouth is.

Dan Hancox is a London-based journalist and blogger, writing for The Guardian, New Statesman, The Word, and a variety of music blogs.

Light clubbing?

Dan Hancox — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 13:17:00 +0000

Green issues rarely seem half as interesting as a night out. But what if the two were combined? Dan Hancox investigates sustainable nightlife, from recycled food to solar-powered clubs.

Most peoples’ ideas about sustainable consumption focus on the little things in our day-to-day lives: installing energy-saving light bulbs, recycling food packaging, and so on. But what about when we leave these kind of green micro-tasks to go out for the evening? Most of us tend to abandon our environmental concerns at home with the bills and household chores. In a way this semi-green lifestyle is understandable – after all, who wants to think about the environment when they’re standing at a bar, drink in hand? – but it has to change.

Take the average nightclub or bar. Lighting set-ups and sound-systems alone require colossal amounts of power, meaning that night-clubbing is probably one of the most environmentally destructive activities there is, as this article in the UK’s Independent newspaper reports:

“An average-size club, open three nights a week, consumes 150 times the energy [of] a four-person family.”

The most challenging aspect of making nightlife sustainable is that the two ideas seem to contradict each other. “Nightlife” sounds like fun, freedom, and escapism, while “sustainability” sounds like a boring set of rules and regulations – rules which we don’t mind applying in our prosaic day-to-day lives, but which don’t crop up very often after about 7pm.

So how do you get around this problem? The trick is to make the idea of sustainable nightlife cool, and in this regard the Dutch organisation Sustainable Dance Club (SDC) are out on their own. SDC consist of two main partners, the innovative green enterprise group “Enviu” and their architectural partners Döll; between the two of them they are determined to spread the message that eco-clubbing is the future. Döll architect Alijd van Doorn explained in The Guardian how a bit of imagination could transform the traditional energy-guzzling nightclub, describing some of the highlights of their new mobile dancefloor:

“[we have] intelligent LED lighting systems, rainwater-flush toilets, a water purification system to turn urine into drinking water [a system developed specifically for the project], a cafe using recycled food [they use leftovers from the previous night to make vegetarian-friendly burgers and stir fries] and an electricity-generating dancefloor, whereby the more people dance, the more energy they produce."

At another Dutch club, “Worm”, the walls are made from recycled estate agents' boards, the toilets from oil drums and the door handles from bicycle handlebars. The seats in their attached cinema are taken from disused Volkswagen Passats – and are therefore considerably more comfy than your average theatre! This sense that nothing is beyond recycling or re-use is another idea at the heart of the Sustainable Dance Club’s philosophy, but at the moment their work is all too rare.

One other beacon in the darkness is the Butterfly Social Club in Chicago in the United States. This club has been making a name for itself with an inspired range of sustainable energy resources: as well as solar energy and high-efficiency lights and amplifiers there is also a bike in the club’s front window that provides kinetic energy – assuming someone’s riding it of course. Once again recycling was integral from the outset: “we built the bar out of waste products, ultimately: mud, straw, and sand.” owner Mark Klemen explained to a local TV news crew.

Bars made of mud? Drinking water made from urine? Bicycle-powered glitterballs? Something to think about next time you’re strutting your stuff on the dancefloor…

Dan Hancox is a London-based journalist and blogger, writing for The Guardian, New Statesman, The Word, and a variety of music
blogs.

Homepage photo by Winter's glam