Lengthy earlier than Billie Eilish grew to become a worldwide famous person, she says she was “infamous” amongst her buddies for one thing else solely. “After I would get a gift, I might fastidiously undo the tape and punctiliously unwrap it and never let it rip and I might fold it up in order that it could possibly be reused — I didn’t need to destroy it,” she says with a honest chuckle.
Within the eco-conscious home the place Eilish grew up, every thing — wrapping paper included — was handled as reusable. In 2012, with the assistance of a authorities rebate program, the household transitioned its Los Angeles residence to run on solar energy. And, in 2014, Eilish’s mother and father, Patrick O’Connell and Maggie Baird, eliminated the grass from their entrance yard to save lots of water. “These have been large moments for us,” Baird recollects. “We have been excited.”
When Eilish, then in her early teenagers, began taking label conferences in 2016, her mom got here alongside for the journey — for myriad enterprise causes, together with protecting sustainability on the forefront of her daughter’s profession. Baird recollects “begging” labels to offer extra details about their environmental initiatives and insurance policies, and sometimes puzzled why she and her teenage daughter have been those who needed to elevate the problem within the first place. (Eilish signed with The Darkroom in 2016, an imprint of Common Music Group subsidiary Interscope Data.)
At present, Eilish and Baird are nonetheless speaking concerning the atmosphere — to a lot bigger audiences than they have been almost a decade in the past — whereas additionally main the cost for the way forward for sustainability in music. In 2020, Baird based Help + Feed, which goals to mitigate local weather change and improve meals safety by encouraging the acceptance and accessibility of plant-based meals, together with at large-scale occasions like concert events. Eilish partnered with the group on her 2022 Happier Than Ever tour, which, in accordance with REVERB, a nonprofit devoted to addressing environmental issues within the music enterprise, saved 8.8 million gallons of water by serving plant-based meals for the artists and crew.
And final 12 months, Eilish helped launch and fund REVERB’s Music Decarbonization Undertaking, which goals to in the end get rid of carbon emissions created by the music trade. As a part of the initiative, she partially powered her headlining set at Chicago’s Lollapalooza final summer time with zero-emissions battery programs that have been charged on a brief “photo voltaic farm” arrange on web site. (In 2024, Willie Nelson’s Luck Reunion competition partnered with REVERB for a second consecutive 12 months to energy its foremost stage with 100% photo voltaic vitality all day.)
Eilish’s sustainability efforts go far past her touring. In 2022, she labored with Nike to revamp the model’s iconic Air Drive 1 footwear to be vegan utilizing vegan nubuck leather-based made with 80% recycled supplies and 100% recycled polyester. Extra not too long ago, in October she starred in a Gucci marketing campaign that featured its basic 1955 Horsebit bag in Demetra, a vegan various to leather-based made out of 75% plant-derived uncooked supplies — a primary for the model.
“Yeah, we’re all going to die quickly,” Eilish says matter-of-factly. “However we will attempt our greatest.”
Billie Eilish (left) and Maggie Baird at Overheated in 2023.
Jessie Morgan
Rising up, why was sustainability such a precedence for the household?
Billie Eilish: It wasn’t even one thing I actually thought of; it was such a standard factor. My mother began making these baggage in these various kinds of stunning materials and ribbons, and that’s how all of our presents have been wrapped for Christmas and my birthday. After I would have events, buddies would come over and produce me presents in wrapping paper and I might be like, “Ew, that is so ugly.” We all the time used dish towels as an alternative of paper napkins — every thing was reusable, really. And I didn’t even realize it was bizarre. After I began courting, the folks I used to be courting could be like, “Do you’ve any paper towels?”
Maggie Baird: You’re four-and-a-half years [younger than your brother], Finneas… [he] remembers [the] transition extra. We all the time joke that my youngsters grew up in the home the place you bought the stink eye should you got here in with a plastic bag or should you wasted something.
Eilish: I even suppose to a fault typically, I’m so unable to only throw issues away within the trash. If I get meals out with a buddy I actually should separate every thing. Like, it’s genuinely annoying. I want I simply didn’t care and will throw all of it within the rubbish and that could possibly be the tip of it.
When Billie was beginning out, have been there any blueprints for making a music profession sustainable or have been you making your individual?
Eilish: There’s all the time any person that paved the way in which for you, however I acquired to be actual: It was bleak out right here. We’d be in conferences for issues and my mother would [ask], “What are you guys doing to be extra resourceful and aware?” They usually’d be like, “Oh, uh, properly, you understand…” They’d be tripping and stumbling over their phrases as a result of they’re not doing something. And it was type of alarming to seek out that nobody’s actually doing something to raised the world. And the issue is, us folks dwelling on the planet with no energy — “us” when it comes to anyone — we’re all like, “Oh, don’t use plastic straws. We’re going to make use of horrible, soggy paper straws to save lots of all of the turtles. And we’re going to get electrical vehicles. And we’re going to not use blow dryers,” or no matter it’s to save lots of the planet. After which these big firms will not be even doing something once they have a lot extra energy. We’ve had a number of conversations and individuals are making an attempt, however even once they’re making an attempt, they’re like, “Oh, yeah. We’re going to have that in 2026.” And also you’re like, “Properly, that’s not quick sufficient.”
Baird: It did really feel bleak and really lonely to start with. Whenever you’re a smaller artist and also you don’t have any energy and also you don’t have any cash, you simply end up going, “Wait, why do we’ve got all this plastic backstage?” Or, “Why are we driving this manner?” Or, “Why are we doing this?” And the reply was, “Properly, that’s simply the way in which it’s executed.” What actually helped me was any person stated, “It is advisable to discuss to [Coldplay’s] Chris Martin.” They linked me on a name with Chris, which was wonderful. Then Chris linked me to REVERB, and REVERB was an actual game-changer for us. They’d the power to assist us know what to vary and tips on how to talk.
Do you suggest REVERB to new artists in search of sustainability options?
Baird: They do have assets for newer artists as a result of to start with, you possibly can’t actually afford issues and also you might not be enjoying in venues which have a number of flexibility. There’s a number of organizations working on this area: Music Sustainability Alliance, Music Declares Emergency. If artists have an interest, it does actually begin with them telling their groups that they care and that it’s foremost of their ideas. From the start, it was about continuously asking questions till folks [got] you the solutions.
We, as a plant-based household, had all these catering conversations and it was not till Lesley [Olenik, vp of touring at] Reside Nation was like, “Properly, it sounds such as you’d like all plant-based meals.” We have been like, “Can we try this?” And he or she was like, “Erykah Badu did.” It’s type of simply figuring out what different individuals are doing. We do have inexperienced riders [for] dressing rooms, video shoots and photoshoots. I feel these are actually, actually useful and extremely shareable.
Which of your strides in sustainability are you most pleased with?
Eilish: The one which was seen by the most individuals was getting Oscar de la Renta to cease utilizing fur once they made me a costume for the Met [Gala]. That was actually vital to me. It’s powerful as an individual who loves trend. I’ve tried to be a giant advocate of no animal merchandise in clothes and it’s laborious. Individuals actually like basic issues. I get it, I’m one among them. However what’s extra vital: issues being unique or our children having the ability to dwell on the planet and them having youngsters?
Baird: Additionally, the photo voltaic set at Lollapalooza was an enormous second. And Billie additionally made it potential for us to create two local weather summits in London for her followers, Overheated, [which was held in 2022 and 2023]. Getting [London’s] O2 Area to go absolutely plant-based for six reveals [in 2022] was a monumental feat, and getting plant-based meals in each area on her [Happier Than Ever] tour was wonderful. There’s so many wonderful wins that Billie herself in all probability doesn’t even know. I feel that the artist’s function is to champion [something] and say that’s what they need, what they imagine in and [that they] need to make it occur. It’s the ability that they should say, “That is vital to me, and it needs to be a precedence.”
Billie Eilish (left) and Maggie Baird onstage with panelists at their Overheated local weather activism occasion in London in 2023.
Jessie Morgan
Have you ever seen labels make sustainability a precedence?
Baird: I’ll say fortunately that Common has actually come a good distance. We had three Common Music Group Sustainability Summits final 12 months, one in London, one in L.A., one in New York with simply UMG staff speaking about all the varied points. I was like, “Why are we those doing this?” Like, why is a 15-year-old lady and her mother speaking about this? Why aren’t you telling us, why don’t you’ve all the recommendation on this? However steadily they’ve began to, which I feel is actually encouraging.
On the subject of pushing for influence over revenue, have you ever skilled any friction?
Baird: Merch turns into an actual problem. We take a look at sustainability in each single side: vinyl, packaging, transportation, meals. However with merch, Billie may be very explicit about what her merch seems like.
Eilish: It’s about the way it feels and the way it seems and the way it’s made. And so the issue is to make it possible for my clothes is being made properly and ethically and with good supplies and it’s very sustainable and that it feels good and is sturdy. It’s going to be costlier and that’s the factor: Individuals may be upset by that. However I’m making an attempt to choose one among two evils.
Baird: And Billie diminished the variety of drops she does. Like, she simply actually doesn’t promote as a lot merch.
Eilish: Generally folks have the thought of when issues are extra moral, they’re costlier, and so it’s more durable to be plant-based or environmentally aware should you don’t have as a lot cash. That’s the entire system we dwell in, of like, if in case you have much less cash then you’ve much less assets [for] more healthy meals… And so what we’re making an attempt to do is make it extra universally accessible.
You’re working to make vinyl extra sustainable. Happier Than Ever got here in eight vinyl variants, however you utilize 100% recycled black vinyl — plus recycled scraps for coloured variants — and shrink-wrap made out of sugar cane.
Eilish: We dwell nowadays the place, for some purpose, it’s crucial to some artists to make all types of various vinyl and packaging … which ups the gross sales and ups the numbers and will get them more cash and will get them extra…
Baird: Properly, it counts towards No. 1 albums.
Eilish: I can’t even categorical to you the way wasteful it’s. It’s proper in entrance of our faces and individuals are simply getting away with it left and proper, and I discover it actually irritating as any person who actually goes out of my approach to be sustainable and do the most effective that I can and attempt to contain all people in my workforce in being sustainable — after which it’s a number of the greatest artists on the planet making f–king 40 completely different vinyl packages which have a special distinctive factor simply to get you to maintain shopping for extra. It’s so wasteful, and it’s irritating to me that we’re nonetheless at a degree the place you care that a lot about your numbers and also you care that a lot about making a living — and it’s all of your favourite artists doing that sh-t.
Baird: However to be honest, the issue is systemic, proper? As a result of if Billboard, to be sincere, goes to not have limits… I might like to see limits, like not more than 4 colours. Or some type of guidelines, as a result of you possibly can’t fault an artist for enjoying the No. 1 sport.
Eilish: I used to be watching The Starvation Video games and it made me give it some thought, as a result of it’s like, we’re all going to do it as a result of [it’s] the one approach to play the sport. It’s simply accentuating this already type of tousled manner of this trade working.
How have the trade and fan responses to your efforts shifted through the years?
Baird: You’ve this wonderful energy while you’ve acquired 10,000 to twenty,000 folks in a venue to see you, who get to listen to from you, what you imagine in and the way you’re making an attempt to vary. That fan interplay is extremely vital. When you can educate them to know you possibly can convey your reusable water bottle in and there can be water-filling stations, and there can be plant-based meals and it’ll not be costlier, and [to think about] the way you get to the present and again — which, as we all know, the most important carbon price is fan transportation. Then we’ve acquired to get the sector to know folks need these items.
We all know from analysis that followers usually tend to take motion in the event that they imagine the artist is genuine. Which I feel sadly scares off a number of artists as a result of they’re like, “Properly, I don’t need to say I’m making an attempt to do X as a result of I’m not good on Y.” That’s a barrier that’s actually difficult to interrupt, particularly with social media and the tradition of cancel and hate. The reality is, you simply should do it anyway. Artists can solid a large shadow of affect. When you’re not good, however you might be influencing many, many, many individuals to do higher, it’s multiplied tons of of occasions.
Is there every other a part of your profession, Billie, that isn’t but the place you desire to it to be when it comes to sustainability?
Baird: You skilled main touring climate occasions in 2022 and 2023. We have been in an excessive climate occasion in Mexico Metropolis that canceled the present and was fairly harmful. We’ve been in horrific warmth. We’ve been in horrific smoke from fires. It’s only a actuality of the enterprise, and other people should begin to take significantly that that is the most important menace to touring.
Eilish: It’s a endless f–king battle. As everyone knows, it’s fairly unattainable to power somebody to care. All you are able to do is categorical and clarify your beliefs, however lots of people don’t actually perceive the severity of the local weather [crisis]. And in the event that they do, they’re like, “Properly, what’s the purpose? We’re all going to die anyway.” Consider me, I really feel that manner too. However “what’s the purpose” goes each methods: “What’s the purpose? I can do no matter I would like. We’re all going to die anyway.” Or, “What’s the purpose? I’d as properly do the proper factor whereas I’m right here.” That’s my view.
This story will seem within the March 30, 2024, problem of Billboard.
