Musicians to Credit Earth as Collaborator and Send Royalties to Environmental Causes

A group of musicians will start naming planet Earth as a collaborator on the music, which will send some of the royalties to environmental causes.

Artists including Brian Eno, Fraser T. Smith, Jacob Collier and Anna Calvi will include a credit to Earth as a co-writer for upcoming music. The artists can choose a percentage of royalties to go to EarthPercent, a charity founded by Eno.

Additional artists joining the movement include Mount Kimbie, Erland Cooper, Rostam Batmanglij and Aurora.

“I am currently writing my next album — it’s an album about interconnectedness and the art of coexistence,” Aurora said, as reported by The Guardian. “There is no greater teacher than Mother Earth. There is no greater home, or provider. There is no better place than Earth. And that is why I want to make this whole album with Mother Earth as a co-writer, because without her there wouldn’t be any such thing as music.”

According to EarthPercent, the funds are diverted to various causes, including toward people at the frontlines of climate change, scientific solutions to climate change, actions to change cultural norms and system-wide changes like policy-making and economic incentives. The organization’s vision includes making the music industry more sustainable, protecting and restoring nature and contributing toward more sustainable and equitable communities. EarthPercent has a goal of raising $100 million by 2030.

Carbon Credits reported that live concerts in the UK contribute about 405,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions each year with most emissions attributed to the venues, audience travel and band travel. In addition to emissions, live events can also generate a lot of waste.

This is far from the first time the industry has rallied to clean up its acts. Several musicians have implemented their own ways of embracing sustainability. The Roots has been working toward creating carbon-neutral music events, and Radiohead has promoted more sustainable actions at its shows, including banning air freight for crews. Other major artists and bands have put out songs and albums about nature and climate change.

In Australia, an album consisting of calls of threatened native bird species topped the charts in late 2021, and proceeds from the album were sent to BirdLife Australia to help with bird conservation efforts.

As a whole, many record labels of the music industry signed a Music Climate Pact in 2021. The participants have set a target to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.