Sustainable Energy

Coldplay's Chris Martin says band will not tour its new album due to environment concerns

Key Points
  • The group is releasing its latest album on Friday, but lead singer says they will not be undertaking a live tour. 
  • Chris Martin tells the BBC that band will be "disappointed" if next tour is not carbon neutral.
Chris Martin of Coldplay performs live at San Siro Stadium, Milan, Italy, in July 2017.
Mairo Cinquetti | NurPhoto | Getty Images

Coldplay is one of the biggest bands in the world, racking up millions of record sales and packing out stadiums with adoring fans wherever they play.

With a new record due for release Friday, you would expect the band to embark on a huge tour to promote it. Not so, with the their singer citing sustainability as a concern.

"We're not touring this album," Chris Martin told the BBC in an interview.

"We're taking time over the next year or two, to work out how our tour can not only be sustainable [but] how can it be actively beneficial," Martin told the broadcaster, going on to add that the band would be "disappointed" if its next tour was not carbon neutral.

"The hardest thing is the flying side of things," Martin explained to the BBC, adding that the band's dream was to "have a show with no single use plastic, to have it largely solar powered."

The band is currently in Jordan, where it will play two shows on Friday to promote its new album, Everyday Life. A gig at the Natural History Museum in London will follow on Monday.

In a statement issued on its website earlier this week, Coldplay said the London concert was "expected to be the band's only U.K. show of the Everyday Life era."

Coldplay's decision, and Martin's mention of flying, chimes with growing concerns about aviation and its impact on the environment, with high profile activists such as Greta Thunberg seeking to increase public awareness of the issue.

According to the European Aviation Environmental Report for 2019, domestic and international aviation accounted for 3.6% of European Union member states' greenhouse gas emissions in 2016.

The report, a joint publication from the European Environment Agency, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency and Eurocontrol, also found that carbon dioxide emissions from aviation were expected to grow by "at least" 21% by the year 2040.