Stanford’s First Major Concert Showcases Environmentally-Conscious Entertainment 

Stanford hosted its first major concert debut at Stanford Stadium, bringing together over 80,000 fans to celebrate live music on campus. Notably, the concert weekend featured climate-forward operations, powered by 100% renewable electricity. Behind the scenes, a powerful collaboration between Stanford Athletics, Stanford Live, Land, Buildings & Real Estate, Business Affairs, and Residential & Dining Enterprises brought to life a vision for what sustainable entertainment can look like. Keith Juricich, the Associate Athletics Director of Events and Operations for the Department of Athletics, Physical Education and Recreation said “We knew immediately that this would be a true team effort to ensure we had the proper waste streams, cleaning equipment (electric vs. gas), cutlery, cups, beverage containers, etc. The partnership, support and buy in from all of the key stakeholders to make this happen was truly inspiring!”

As fans entered the stadium, they were able to purchase beverages in reusable cups, a new feature at the stadium that assisted in diverting as much waste as possible from landfills. What wasn’t anywhere in sight? Single-use plastic! “The band’s desire to eliminate single-use plastics from the venue dovetailed perfectly with Stanford’s zero waste goals and helped push us to bring more sustainable products to campus,” said Moira Zbella, Director of Responsible Purchasing in Business Affairs.

Additionally, staff and students from the Sustainable Stanford team danced between various waste bin stations to monitor waste sorting efforts and help meet over 80% waste diversion from the landfill. Four hundred pounds of edible food were recovered from the concert and donated to the local nonprofit Muslim Sisters Helping just in time for one of their distributions, where the rescued meals fed 200 people who might have otherwise gone without. The confetti and fireworks that lit up the evening skies were intentionally designed to be friendly to the planet – compostable confetti and recyclable pyrotechnic canisters made for recycling. As fans jumped on kinetic floors and cycled on stationary bikes, their movements helped generate more energy for show operations.

This live experience doubled as a platform for sustainability leadership, and sharing insights more widely with the Stanford community on what this looks like in practice. Sustainable Stanford hosted a fireside chat with Ariel Bojeun, Live Nation’s Green Nation Tour Representative, and Madeleine Smith, Warner Music Group’s senior director of Environmental, Social, and Governance. These two leaders offered their wisdom about the feasibility of climate-action in large-scale entertainment and how the music industry can help shift culture towards sustainability in an open dialogue moderated by student Riley Zwetsloot, a Strategy Intern in the Living Lab Program.

By making sustainability such a visible, fun, and interactive part of the live event experience, Stanford helped to show the 80,000+ concert attendees that climate-conscious programming can scale to large audiences. This collaborative effort showed a campus-wide commitment to leading by example. Whether you’re a visitor, staff or faculty member, or a student, there’s a role for everyone in making sure sustainability is part of the experience. With this milestone success as a foundation, Stanford has shown that it is capable of hosting events that are not only unforgettable, but aligned with our collective values.