Sex, drugs and biofuel | Portland nonprofit Reverb wants to clean up rock-and-roll, one dirty tour bus at a time

The members of Barenaked Ladies, a rock quintet from Toronto known for its light-hearted lyrics and catchy singles, have long used their celebrity status to advocate for environmental causes, from singing songs that mock excessive consumption to joining a local renewable energy co-op in their hometown.

But when it came to taking that environmental ethic on the road, they needed a bit of help.

The logistics of running a conventional tour are complex enough, but adding in the prospects of biodiesel fill-ups, carbon offsets, recyclable stage materials and the task of offering environmental education for concertgoers was too much for even the band and its team to take on.

That's when Barenaked Ladies turned to husband-and-wife team Adam Gardner and Lauren Sullivan for some help. Gardner and Sullivan's Portland nonprofit organization Reverb, which helps bands "green" their tours, cooperated with the band in finding ways to reduce its tour's environmental impact and arranged for an interactive "ecovillage" at each show that featured displays by various environmental organizations.

"We talk about Reverb as offering a menu of educational and environmental services," says Sullivan. "We just meet the artist wherever they want to be. For example, The Red Hot Chili Peppers just wanted us to organize biodiesel for their tour. Some artists just want us to get environmental groups to come out. Some want us to be totally involved."

Sullivan and Gardner, who met as students at Tufts University, started Reverb out of their New York City apartment three years ago and then transplanted it to the Portland apartment they moved into in 2005. Maine might not seem like the best location to establish an organization that caters to the Los Angeles-centered music industry, but Sullivan and Gardener each bring unique backgrounds to the project that help them pull it off. Sullivan, who for many years worked for the Rainforest Action Network, an environmental advocacy group in San Francisco, is an experienced environmental activist; Gardner, the lead guitarist for the rock trio Guster, is a rock star. Together, they're well-qualified to promote environmental activism among the rock-and-roll set. Last month, Reverb finally moved into a small office in Portland's Old Port. The move, says Sullivan, was driven by a steady increase in demand for Reverb's services.

"My dining room table had been our office for years," she says. "But it's a growth spurt right now for us. We're an incredibly busy organization."

Sullivan doesn't expect that growth to slow any time soon ˆ— she expects many more bands to ask for help in the coming years. That leaves Sullivan and Gardner needing to make some important decisions about Reverb's future. They can remain a small, grassroots organization and turn some bands away, or they can try to spread environmental sustainability to as wide an audience as possible, growing as they do.

Sullivan, who worked with stars like Dave Matthews and Bonnie Raitt during her tenure at the Rainforest Action Network, is well aware of the power celebrities have to promote a cause. Since Reverb was established three years ago it has been the subject of feature articles by nearly every major newspaper in the country and spread its word to hundreds of thousands of concertgoers throughout the worldˆ—high-profile attention for a small, four-employee non-profit that wouldn't have materialized without the glamour of famous musicians and rock tours.

Reverb works with many major acts ˆ— from Sheryl Crow to rockers O.A.R. ˆ— but most of those artists, and many of their fans, have long had some interest in environmental causes. The next step for spreading environmental awareness in the music industry lies in extending sustainable touring to country, heavy metal and hip-hop artists who could reach audiences less likely to know about the virtues of biodiesel and compost. (Moving in that direction, Reverb recently started working with country stars Tim McGraw and Faith Hill). For now, though, Reverb has plenty to keep itself busy ˆ— Norah Jones, the Beastie Boys and the Fray are all going on tour and counting on Reverb to keep their tour vehicles running with clean-burning fuel.

Going neutral
When most concertgoers shell out $50 or $100 for a big show, they are expecting more than just good music ˆ— they are paying for a full-on concert experience, whether it's the spectacle of pyrotechnics from bands like Black Sabbath or the anarchic, carnival-like setting of a Phish festival. But when fans go out to see the rock trio Guster they find that their ticket is paying for more than just rocking out ˆ— it's also helping fund wind or solar power projects and the development of other renewable energies. And the concert experience, which includes an "ecovillage" filled with dozens of booths occupied by environmental organizations, at times seems more environmental conference than rock show.

The members of Guster shoulder part of the cost of greening their tours, but they also use something Reverb calls an eco-fund. That fund tacks a 50-cent charge to each ticket to cover the cost of offsetting the event's production of carbon dioxide ˆ— a chemical compound that contributes to global warming. Carbon offsetting, an increasingly common tool used by individuals, corporations and institutions, involves determining how much energy is being produced by carbon-based means, and paying the cost of that energy to a carbon offsetting group like Charlotte, Vt.-based Native Energy that directs the money to the development of renewable energy sources like non-polluting wind or solar power. The ultimate goal: carbon-neutrality.

"Adding something onto the ticket price is a great way to do it," says Sullivan. "It's not a cent out of the band's pockets and they're letting fans know that they are contributing to making this an environmentally conscious event."

Reverb buys most of its carbon offsets through Native Energy, which charges around $12 to offset each ton of carbon dioxide produced. With a typical tour producing as much as 500 tons ˆ— including electricity consumption at venues, emissions from travel and the energy costs of accommodations ˆ— the costs of offsetting can easily reach several thousand dollars. Some bands, like Bare Naked Ladies, sell stickers to fans that raise funds to pay to offset the carbon produced by fans coming to a show as well.

Other costs associated with Reverb's work on a tour are funded through fundraisers and donations from companies that emphasize environmentally sound practices like Ben and Jerry's and Stonyfield Farm, which also man booths in the ecovillages. Reverb strives to minimize the impact their work has on a tour's bottom line, but some costs do come back to the artists.

Reverb also helps solve big logistical challenges like mapping out reputable biofuel stations along a tour's route, so a fleet of vehicles can refill its tanks with more environmentally friendly fuel. The Dave Mathews Band, for example, requires a fleet of tractor-trailer trucks and buses when it's on the road ˆ— 11 tour vehicles all together. Reverb now arranges for the band to stop for biodiesel fueling, mapping out biodiesel stations along their tour route. Those efforts have reduced Matthews' tour emissions by an estimated 10,000 pounds of carbon dioxide a week.

And the group arranges what Sullivan calls "mini-eco-SWAT teams" to descend on the tour stops with biodegradable materials like sugar cane plates and potato starch utensils, encourage artists and others on tour to use reusable water bottles instead of throwaway ones, replace one-use batteries in stage monitors with rechargeable battery packs, and even collect old guitar strings and send them to a New Hampshire artist who makes jewelry out of them.

"Reverb comes with a team of coordinators and makes sure all the day-to-day things are done right," says Guster Tour Manager Seth Loeser. "They are the go-to people."

Spreading the gospel of green
Although Guster guitarist Gardner is co-founder of Reverb, his band was not among the first bands to team up with Reverb. Gardner's bandmates were enthusiastic about the project, but the band was recording an album when Reverb was ready to go to work.

Instead, Reverb made its debut on a 2004 tour with pop singer Alanis Morrisette and Barenaked Ladies. Sullivan had known the artists were interested in environmental issues and asked if they'd be willing to be guinea pigs for Reverb's untested ideas. The tour was a success, with Barenaked Ladies extending the greening efforts to all its tours, and served to spread Reverb's ideas to other musicians.

But Sullivan traces the roots of Reverb to Bonnie Raitt's Green Highway project. In 2002 Raitt and her manager Kathy Kane established the touring festival, which featured carbon offsets, biodiesel fueled tour vehicles, and groups of local non-profits gathering at each concert to educate fans about alternative energies and other causes Raitt held dear.

"I thought the concerts had a fun, science fair feel," says Sullivan. "I reached out to Kathy Kane and she said, 'We're out in L.A. ˆ— why don't you come out and meet with us?'"

Soon, Kane's charity, the Aria Foundation, which Green Highway is part of, gave birth to Reverb. Now Reverb operates under the umbrella of Aria, coordinating the Green Highway festivals and spreading its model across the music industry.

Kane remains actively involved in helping Gardner and Sullivan run Reverb, and her high-level connections in the music industry are helpful.

Like much of that industry, Kane is based in California. But although Sullivan says she does need to make frequent visits out to L.A., she's content here in Maine. "I was raised in Wells ˆ— I'm a third-generation Mainer," says Sullivan. "I always knew I would come back to Maine. Fortunately, Adam fell in love with Maine."

She also doesn't think that being based so far away from the action has made it any more difficult for Reverb to accomplish its mission.

"Since Adam has been in music so long and since he works with Warner Brothers, he has lots of artist connections," she says. "He can pick up the phone and get John Mayer on the line. Those relationships are already there, so the lines of communication are open."

Now that Reverb is working alongside more and more of the biggest musical acts around, those relationships are multiplying. On Guster's Campus Consciousness tours with Reverb, Loeser saw other artists get turned on to Reverb's approach to touring.

"On the first Campus Consciousness tour we had Andrew Bird, and just this year he started using biodiesel," says Loeser. "That seed definitely got planted."

The group has other plans, too. "We want to work on venue-greening as well," says Sullivan. "We want to get the greening systems in place at the concert venues so they are there for any show."

Sullivan says that with all the sudden demand for Reverb's services, the future of the organization has weighed on her mind.

"We're asking ourselves, 'Are we going to just stay a boutique organization and just say no to some people?" she says. "Or do we want to get as much sustainable work done as possible? I know we do see ourselves definitely growing big in the next year or two."