The Music Industry Is Destroying the Environment and Billie Eilish Knows Exactly How to Fight It

A swarm of black-gloved hands strips away the hospital dress from a woman’s body. The woman turns into a fallen angel. White wings burst from her shoulders as she falls into a pit of black oil. When she emerges, her body and wings are drenched in this plasticized, dark liquid. In another moment, she gets surrounded by dancing flames, and her wings catch fire. “All the good girls go to hell,” Billie Eilish sings in her haunting voice. This song is more than just a piece of creepy dystopian visuals. It is a projection of the future, as The Nature Conservancy also noted.

Global warming is slowly stripping away the protective fortress of the planet of its pure air and water. Meanwhile, Eilish is busting to do all she can to eliminate environmental damage caused by the music industry, as she shared in an exclusive clip with Billboard. The clip was part of an interview conducted prior to an episode of The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper. In the clip, Eilish spoke to CNN Chief Climate Correspondent Bill Weir. Her mom, Maggie Baird, a climate activist, also joined the interview. During the conversation, Eilish spoke about the culture shock she experienced while growing up in an environmentally-conscious household and then moving into the music industry.

Recalling the initial years of her career, Elish said, “We were meeting different brands, and I was going to go on tour and make perfume and my own clothing line. We learned how much unbelievable waste is going on that we don’t really know is happening.” Baird added, “We stepped into this other world, and it was a little bit like, ‘Oh my gosh, what is happening here?'” Eilish fiercely stated that the music industry is an environmental sinner and wasteful. “Nobody has a plan,” she lamented. She, however, is a non-conformist ever since she was taught to care for nature and the animals.

For music fans, this might sound too upsetting, but the music industry leaches away a lot of vital energy from the planet and contaminates it with greenhouse gases that slowly, subtly wreak havoc on the environment. From plastic-made vinyl records to electricity-oozing dancefloors, the music biz unknowingly damages the fabric of the environment, causing it to fall into the pit of polluted shadows. A study published in Nature revealed that the UK music industry produced some 540,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions annually.

Over the years, not just Eilish, but other musicians, including Radiohead, Coldplay, The 1975, and the South Korean band BTS, have declared initiatives to make music events more eco-friendly. BTS, for instance, became the brand ambassador for a coal-plant-powered supply deal in Indonesia. Coldplay partnered with a biofuel company in 2022. The study also mentioned a project co-funded by the Warner Music Group in partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Environmental Solutions Initiative, Live Nation, and Coldplay, initiated to analyse the carbon footprint of the live music industry.

Over all these years, Eilish has been actively fighting to decarbonize the music industry. From working on vegan fashion with brands like Nike and Oscar de la Renta to launching her own climate change initiative called “Support + Feed,” the singing star has been a key player in sparking environmental awareness. She even called out unnamed artists who are making dozens of vinyl record varieties, not giving regard to the ravage they are doing to the planet. She believes the industry still has a long way to go in redressing the balance it has disrupted over the years. 

More on Green Matters

Billie Eilish Reveals Secret Ingredient That Makes Her Gluten-Free Cookies Both Healthy and Delicious

Bill Gates Vouches for This Dairy-Free Yogurt Made of Ingredients Sourced From the Yellowstone National Park

Gordon Ramsay Urges People To Switch From Regular Butter to This Plant-Based Alternative