Mumford & Sons Reveal How They Reduced Their Carbon Footprint On Delta Tour

By Katrina Nattress

April 22, 2020

Mumford & Sons celebrated Earth Day this year by sharing how they were able to reduce the carbon footprint of their Delta tour. The band shared a lengthy message on Instagram, revealing their efforts and their impact: "14,802 lbs of recycling was diverted from landfills⁣; 10,500 lbs of compost was diverted from landfills⁣; 58,000 single use plastic water bottles were avoided backstage alone!⁣ Hotel toiletry collection (of what would otherwise be landfill) to donate to homeless shelters; Greener products for cleaning the tour buses⁣; Boxed water management instead of relying on venues' plastic disposable water. Water refill stations set up throughout backstage to encourage the use of provided Swell and Nalgene bottles⁣," but that's not all.

There was also a fan-based impact. "The @rcuponeplanet program at concessions eliminated 60,000 disposable plastic cups across the tour," they wrote. "The @reverb_org RockNRefill program eliminated 16,000 disposable plastic bottles at just 18 shows⁣. Fans took 10,000 actions, including signing up with local non-profits, at 18 shows.⁣"

They also want to offset carbon emissions from tour, and said another statement was coming that would detail how they plan to do that. See Mumford & Sons' full note below.

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We have always been mindful of the ecological impact of touring on our natural environment and, since we started the band, have taken part in various initiatives together and also individually to contribute to reducing that footprint. However, we’ve always felt like there was more that we could do and whatever that was we wanted to ensure it was both a sustainable contribution and one that we could track the accountability to safeguard its effectiveness. So in 2018, as we were recording Delta, we engaged various experts to help us implement a number schemes and methods to ensure we could start to reflect our ambition to reduce our footprint as we tour. ⁣ ⁣ Today, we are proud to announce that, with your help, we have achieved the following:⁣ ⁣ 14,802 lbs of recycling was diverted from landfills⁣ 10,500 lbs of compost was diverted from landfills⁣ 58,000 single use plastic water bottles were avoided backstage alone!⁣ Hotel toiletry collection (of what would otherwise be landfill) to donate to homeless shelters⁣ Greener products for cleaning the tour buses⁣ Boxed water management instead of relying on venues' plastic disposable water. ⁣ Water refill stations set up throughout backstage to encourage the use of provided Swell and Nalgene bottles⁣ ⁣ Fan impact was reduced as well:⁣ ⁣ The @rcuponeplanet program at concessions eliminated 60,000 disposable plastic cups across the tour ⁣ The @reverb_org RockNRefill program eliminated 16,000 disposable plastic bottles at just 18 shows⁣ Fans took 10,000 actions, including signing up with local non-profits, at 18 shows.⁣ ⁣ On top of this, we are committed to offsetting carbon emissions from the Delta Tour, and will make a separate statement shortly regarding how we will be doing so.⁣ ⁣ We are committed to this planet we live on and will continue to provide updates around these initiatives as time goes on. We appreciate you taking the time to read this post, we are grateful for the role you played in our greening efforts, and we hope you will also take whatever steps you can to protect the earth.⁣ ⁣ Happy #EarthDay! (and thanks again to @natgeo for supplying this incredible footage)⁣ ⁣ The Lads x

A post shared by Mumford & Sons (@mumfordandsons) on Apr 22, 2020 at 11:33am PDT

Though they won't be hitting the road anytime soon, Marcus Mumford has been keeping himself busy in quarantine. Earlier this month, he shared a video filmed in isolation for the band's new song "You'll Never Walk Alone."

Photo: Gavin Batty

TopicsMumford & Sons