AGF Insider: Reflections on Live Music’s Sustainability Efforts and Emerging Trends with Greg Cochrane
Welcome to AGF Insider, our insightful series where we bring you monthly interviews with industry experts.
Each month we catch up with an industry leader in the sustainability world to find the current trends and best practices
This month, we catch up with Greg Cochrane, journalist and broadcaster, working in the crossover between pop culture and climate change. He's Engagement Lead at the Oxford Climate Journalism Network, host of the podcast Sounds like a Plan and contributor with BBC, the Guardian and NME.
(LIDO Festival, 2025, photography: Grid Faeries)
What are your favourite recent examples of action in the live music space on sustainability?
After attending Massive Attack's Act 1.5 show on Bristol Downs last August, I was really encouraged to see many of the approaches demonstrated at that show brought to a multi-day event like the recent LIDO festival in London.
The clean energy in particular got many positive mentions in press coverage of the festival – proof that new, different and better is participatory and exciting.
What trends are you seeing this year?
Speaking honestly, I personally feel a sense of trepidation among those I know working closely with sustainability in the live music community. In the wider world it's a time of significant upheaval, which is challenging for our mental strength and moral resolve. I hope it doesn't slow any of the extraordinary progress we've seen build the past few years. I see people being committed and bold – a trend we'll need to see even more of!
(Photograph: Christopher Fudurich)
What stories coming out of the community have caught your attention this year?
While I'm based in the UK, I felt deeply affected by the fallout from climate change propelled wildfires that destroyed large parts of Los Angeles in January (I wrote for the Guardian about it here). I know Hollywood is plastered on the side of the hill, but for me it's a music city. Not just because of the legendary venues, scenes and headquarters of big music business, but the large numbers of music workers (the gig-to-gig freelancers working in everything from lighting to music video production) who, in thousands of cases, lost their homes and worldly possessions. How LA is reshaped - geographically and culturally - is yet to be determined. For me it was a devastating reminder that extreme weather isn't just something for live music events.
On the recorded side, BICEP recently announced a project with indigenous artists from the Arctic region titled 'TAKKUUK’. To see artists with significant reach find ways to authentically share their passion for valuable collaborators, knowledge and art like this is fantastic. The soundtrack is out at the end of July.
And the rest of the year? What will you be watching?
Well, Billie Eilish's Overheated event returns to London in mid July. I'm looking forward to that. On a wider scale, I've been following with interest the work going on between the music and TV/film production industries in Liverpool. As the UN's first climate accelerator city, the project team there have brought together a groundbreaking collection of stakeholders to launch a string of sustainability pilots throughout 2025. The fact music is at the forefront of what will be a huge learning and legacy project is a tribute to its extraordinary power of the creative industries to lead lasting change.
Any other messages to AGF readers?
Keep going and follow your instinct. For those close to the work sometimes the progress isn't as fast as maybe you'd like, but as an outsider I can see the scale and the pace of change, and it's happening!
We hope you found Greg’s insights informative and inspiring. Keep an eye out for next month's edition of AGF Insider, where we'll bring you more expert perspectives and fresh ideas!
