In my previous Wideangle post, I raised the question: ‘is there any point in trying to be ‘green’ in professional audio? And the conclusion I proffered was that it was, for two main reasons.
First, because of the increasing expectation from society in general that businesses act responsibly. Second, that there’s good evidence suggesting that not being green drives negative perceptions; while being green is strongly associated with leadership and innovation.
The 30 years since its founding have seen Florida’s Full Sail arts design and entertainment media school has grown beyond its highest ambitions. Today, it offers a broad spectrum of accredited degree programmes encompassing music and sound, as well as film, design, show production, games, animation, web design, and music business. Three years in planning and a year-plus in construction, its Full Sail Live is one of the largest, dedicated sound stages for live concert training at an educational facility.
In the popular press, green covers everything from recycling newspapers to using public transport. It allows multinational companies to market ‘green’ groceries, politicians to adopt ‘green tickets’ and vehicle manufacturers to claim ‘green’ emission levels with equal ease.
Over the past couple of decades, environmentalism has moved from being the domain of a vociferous minority into the mainstream of society, and consequently into almost every business activity. But it still doesn’t appear to have made any significant impact in the worlds of audio, video and lighting (AVL).
Is that because 'being green' has has nothing to offer to AVL, or there’s no demand? Is it seen as a costly luxury the industry can ill-afford to adopt? So is there any point even trying to be green in the first place?