Touring Green & Giving Back
Guest Blogger: Jessica Burrus, WLCP - Work-Life Project Liaison, WorldatWork

May 5, 2009

OK, so maybe this doesn’t exactly fit into one of the seven Categories of Work-Life Effectiveness, but when I heard about this on the radio the other day, I couldn’t help but want to share it.  First, I have to admit that I listen to country music, but don’t roll your eyes just yet.  One of the new up and coming groups The Lost Trailers was a morning guests on the radio station I listen to and after touting their new single they started chatting about this year’s tour.  Now I’m not sure about other types of music, but in the country genre it’s pretty typical of the artist to tour by bus.  And it’s not just the artist.  It’s the band, and the sound guys, and the lighting people, and the equipment, and the list goes on.  How many buses would it take to haul all of those people and all of that equipment?  I’m guessing it’s a lot more than just one. 

So here is what they’re doing.  Each time The Lost Trailers go to a city or town to play a concert they fly commercial coach rather than driving their bus, hire local lighting and sound crews rather than flying-in their own staff, rent local equipment rather than bringing their own equipment, hire local transportation companies rather than driving their own bus around, and stay in local hotels rather than on their bus.  Their goal is to put money back into each local economy (not to mention paychecks in people’s pockets) as they tour around the country.  They’ve come to realize that although they have made it big, a lot of people are struggling and out of work right now and what better way to stimulate a local economy than to hire local people and services.  When they said on the radio that morning “there are times to prosper and times to be humble, and this is a time to be humble” it literally made me smile.  They’re giving back, they’re cleaning up and they’re keeping it lean.  So far, according to their website Lean, Clean and Local Tour , just by leaving their bus behind they have cut 132 tons of CO2 emissions.

Between stocks falling, the horrible housing market, layoffs and the H1N1 Virus, it’s nice to hear about something good that is going on.  It doesn’t take much to lend a hand and pay it forward.  I don’t care who you are, we all need it right now.  Oh, and technically, this does fit into one of the seven categories of work-life effectiveness when we take this lesson and apply it to telecommuting, in turn reducing our own carbon footprint.

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