The Music Industry’s First North American Climate Action Summit Is Set: ‘Everybody’s Job Is a Climate Job’

With climate change having widespread effects across the music industry, a new conference will provide education and create action regarding what the music world can do to address the crisis.

The Music Sustainability Summit launches Feb. 5 in Los Angeles and is being produced by The Music Sustainability Alliance, an organization that provide science-based solutions, business case analyses, best practices, and tools for operational change across the industry.

The Summit is the first of its kind in North America.

Happening the day after the Grammy Awards, the event will be moderated by GreenBiz Group chairman and co-founder Joel Makower and feature members of MIT’s Environmental Solutions Initiative, climate change and food justice focused organization Support+Feed, industry environmental nonprofit REVERB, climate organization Planet Reimagined and global sustainability company ClimeCo. The Summit’s partner is Circular Unity, an organization focused on climate change as it relates to the entertainment industry.

The conference is intended to create alignment within the industry by bringing stakeholders on board to commit to climate action. The Summit will include the establishment of working groups meant to ensure that climate organizations are in the rooms with the key decision makers across the industry. Organizers hope that by the end of the day, those in attendance will have committed to the first steps in the industry’s collective action.

“There’s so much good work people are doing, but nobody knows about it,” says Music Sustainability Alliance co-founder and president Amy Morrison. “A goal of the conference, and what inspired it, is to help people to stop reinventing the wheel, to provide resources and get people talking and collaborating. This is a community. The power of all of this together is so much greater than individual actions.”

Hosted on the USC campus, the day-long conference will be structured into two parts, with morning programming focused on education and getting stakeholders on the same page and afternoon programming geared towards action about what the industry can do to mitigate its carbon footprint.

Along with panel discussions, a team from MIT will present a climate-focused map of the entire music industry, and the conference will provide educational materials so that even people just starting to learn about climate science will be able to follow along.

“We welcome all, the climate curious and the climate experts,” says Morrison. “There will be something for everybody.”

Tickets for the Summit are available on a sliding scale, between $25 and $200.

The Music Sustainability Alliance has already been busy bringing together stakeholders. A July organizing call had more than 30 representatives from businesses including UTA, CAA and WME, along with Sony Music, Universal Music Group and Warner Music, along with AEG and Live Nation and a number of managers and nonprofit organizations that work in the climate action space.

“It was really the first time ever all of these people had gotten on the phone together and been in a meeting to actually talk about sustainability,” says Morrison, who was the svp of marketing at Concerts West for more than two decades. “One of things that we find is really important to remember is that everybody’s job is a climate job, and there’s something that we can all do in our daily jobs.”

“It really is about working together and not working in these silos,” adds Music Sustainability Alliance director Eleanore Anderson. “It really is amazing working in these neutral parties and seeing everyone come together.”

Founded during the pandemic, the Music Sustainability Alliance is composed of music industry veterans, companies and scientists who are addressing innovation and sustainability converging in the music industry. The Alliance and the Summit both put a strong emphasis on data, research and science.