Getting creative during the pandemic with rock and roll’s environmental nonprofit
(This article is also featured in Breedlove’s Winter Magazine).
Adam Gardner’s been cooking up a storm. In any other year, the Guster guitarist might be Googling where to locally source his next repast, but, like most touring musicians, he’s been largely stuck at home, in his case, just outside of Portland, Maine, where he’s been hosting REVERB’s Quarantine Kitchen, a cooking show focused on sustainable recipes from other housebound musicians.
Gardner and his wife, environmentalist Lauren Sullivan, founded REVERB in 2004, with a mission of making touring a greener prospect. The nonprofit is “dedicated to empowering millions of individuals to take action toward a better future for people and the planet.”
Just prior to the shutdown, for example, REVERB worked with The Lumineers to neutralize, according to Gardner, “150 percent of their carbon emissions, including all fan travel to and from shows.”
This pandemic year, REVERB is working on making not touring a greener prospect too, with initiatives like Quarantine Kitchen, a Tesla-powered 1966 VW bus fundraiser, and an in-the-works unCHANGEit climate campaign.
“Climate change has got to be one of the things that becomes a top priority for folks,” Gardner, a Bedell Guitars artist, says, “because it’s going to be, whether we want it to or not.”
With the inspiration, cooperation and support of stars like Bonnie Raitt and Dave Matthews—Gardner and Sullivan have created and maintained an organization that educates and enables musicians and fans alike, in ways simple (like curbing single use plastics through the Nalgene-partnered #ROCKNREFILL program and the BYOBottle campaign) and more complex (the ambitious, long-term No More Blood Wood project, with the Environmental Investigation Agency, which aims to “engage musicians, fans, instrument manufacturers and lawmakers to end the environmental destruction and social justice violations of illegal logging.)”
With careful management, Gardner and Sullivan have been able to keep core staff employed throughout the pandemic, but note how hard many behind-the scenes workers in the entertainment industry have been hit.
“We were poised, organizationally, to have our biggest year ever,” Sullivan says. “We were out on tour with Tame Impala, Sturgill Simpson and Billie Eilish. But, given the situation, REVERB is innovating, getting creative and doing well. We’re hanging on and waiting for the touring world to come back to life once vaccines and immunity get where they need to be.”
In the meantime, even as the weather gets colder, Gardner points out we all have immediate options.
“Do you need to be heating spaces you’re not in?” he asks. “Think about heating the people in the home, as opposed to the spaces. Consider going vegetarian—eating less meat is the biggest thing that any individual can do, especially right now.”
“We want everybody to join us,” Sullivan adds. “There’s a place for everyone in this community of people trying to be more sustainable and aware. It isn’t an all or nothing proposition. You don’t have to be a purist. None of us are. Just by the nature of being here and living on this planet, we all have a footprint.”
Band together with REVERB at www.REVERB.org.
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