Taylor Swift has been accused of “neglect” over the carbon footprint being generated by her global Eras Tour.
The criticism comes from carbon accounting firm Greenly, which studied the estimated carbon footprint from the two-year-long tour, taking into account production, merchandising, Swift’s own travel and the travel of her fans.
The tours consist of 152 shows across five continents, which began in March 2023.
Greenly has dubbed Swift a “jet-setting trendsetter”, pointing out Swift has emitted an esteemed 139.1 tonnes in CO2-equivalent (CO2e) emissions during the North and South American legs of her tour alone, covering a total of 107,000 kilometres by private jet.
It said this equalled over 60,000 commercial round-trip flights between Paris and New York.
In her defence, Swift says she uses carbon offsets to compensate her private jet travel.
Greenly also surveyed 143 Swifties planning to attend her Lyon concerts on 2 and 3 June, saying that nearly a third planned to fly to Lyon, which meant the carbon footprint was “already considerable”.
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The group also hit out at Swift over ticket bookings.
It said ticket bookings for four Paris concerts accounted for a power load emitting 4.7 tons CO2e with Parisians having to wait an estimated two hours to check out successfully.
It also took aim at her for souvenir t-shirt sales.
it calculated that assuming that half of all concert-goers buy a souvenir t-shirt, each concert would emit an average of 130 tCO2e per concert (5.2 kg CO2e emitted per t-shirt produced), totalling 19 760 tCO2e emitted for the 152 dates.
Greenly said Swift could easily reduce her footprint significantly by switching to commercial flights and called on the star to the follow the lead of Ed Sheeran and Coldplay.
“Following the example of Ed Sheeran, who switched to flying commercial some time ago, Swift could have reduced her travel emissions in North and South America to 13.7 tCO2e, an impressive 90% reduction.
“Emissions could be further reduced by expanding seating capacity to accommodate more people, resulting in fewer dates. As Coldplay showed in late 2023, electricity consumption can be further reduced by opening the concert to online viewing.”
Earlier this week it was revealed Coldplay had cut its carbon footprint by 59% on its latest world tour compared to its previous one, courtesy of leveraging free water stations, power bikes and kinetic dancefloors that allow dancing fans to generate electricity.
