A battery-powered live outdoor concert headlined by the UK trip-hop band Massive Attack, and attended by more than 32,000 fans, slashed energy-related greenhouse-gas emissions by 98%, according to a report by climate researchers.

Having no diesel generator back-up helped organizers of the Act 1.5 event, held in Bristol, UK, last August, to achieve marked reductions in the on-site carbon emissions, alongside reductions associated with transport and food, the report adds.

Researchers at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of Manchester, UK, evaluated the event’s climate impact against the Super-Low Carbon Live Music road map, which was designed by centre director Carly McLachlan and her team at Tyndall in 2021.

Act 1.5’s greenhouse-gas-emissions data were compared with a counterfactual show of the same size that used standard industry practices. Artists’ transport emissions were reduced by 73% because they shunned air travel in favour of lower-carbon alternatives such as coaches and ferries.

Using two trucks instead of four to transport equipment and switching from diesel to hydrotreated vegetable oil reduced fuel emissions by 70%.

Also, all of the meals sold at the event were vegan, delivering an 89% reduction in emissions.

McLachlan, who co-authored the report with Chris Jones, an environment researcher at Tyndall, attributed Act 1.5’s achievements to an ethos of collaboration and openness to doing things differently, alongside a respect for music-industry professionals with extensive experience.

“Having unwavering commitment from multiple key actors in any sector or project is essential — so that when bumps in the road happen, there is a commitment to finding a super-low-carbon solution,” she adds.

Matt Brennan, whose research at the University of Glasgow, UK, includes music sustainability and the climate crisis, says: “Part of the challenge for the live sector is the amount of cooperation between different actors — sometimes with competing interests — needed to really reduce emissions. It’s great to see that Act 1.5 not only saw ‘rivals’ collaborating, but also indications that seeds were sown for future collaboration.”

Catherine Bottrill, the chief executive of Pilio, a net-zero and nature-innovation company based in London, commended the report for “bringing through the science and the evidence base to help support some better decision-making”. Speaking to Nature before Act 1.5 last year, McLachlan said: “If you suggest something, and people say, ‘Well that would never happen’, but then they can see it already has happened, it just unlocks a totally different way of thinking.”

Act 1.5 provided incentives for audiences to choose low-carbon travel options, including VIP-bar wristbands for rail travellers and free electric shuttle bus tickets between stations and the venue, alongside offering a local pre-sale for people living in Bristol postcodes to minimize how far audience members travelled.