If you're a music lover who likes to help the environment, then you and the people at Green Owl Records have a few things in common.
This Manhattan-based record label has made it their duty to put out good music in a "sustainable fashion," helping to lower their carbon footprint and keep the environment healthy. Their first independent release, "The Green Owl Comp: A Benefit for the Energy Action Coalition," contains a variety of artists who range from Pete Yorn to Feist and includes a separate DVD with music videos, interviews and unreleased bonus tracks.
"So many people get ideas from their favorite artists and musicians," said Green Owl President and co-founder Stephen Glicken. "All we're doing is using music as a platform to get another point across."
Almost everything this label releases exemplifies that point. Factories that run on wind power make their organic cotton hoodies. Their tour bus runs on vegetable oil and has traveled nearly 10,000 miles on only $150 worth of gas. Their Web site even has a "Zip Code Engine" where anyone can search their area for alternative fuel locations.
These measures help reduce carbon emissions and prevent further pollution.
"We're doing everything we can to make environmentalism more digestible," he said. "There's such a negative connotation that goes along with it. The average person thinks an environmentalist is just a hippie tree hugger, so we're trying to change that vibe."
Glicken said he cites former U.S. Vice President Al Gore's Academy Award-winning film "An Inconvenient Truth" as a catalyst for this change.
"The debate is over," Glicken said. "Suddenly the idea of caring for the environment is becoming more commonly accepted."
Like Gore before him, Glicken and other Green Owl co-founders Ellenike Abreu and Ben Brewer said efforts to help the environment are only now surfacing because the public has begun to accept global warming as a crisis.
"It's like people who smoke all their lives and think nothing of it," he said. "But then get cancer and decide it's time to stop. We're just trying to be as proactive as possible at this point."
"The Green Owl Comp" - a two disc, post-consumer packaged green monster disc set - packs a 24-song punch, with eight videos to spare. The track list includes remixes of Bloc Party's "The Prayer," a BBC session recording of Deerhoof's "Plus 81" and a live version of Muse's heavy-hitting "Knights of Cydonia."
While not all of these artists are specifically geared towards environmentalism, they "really act as a vehicle and are laying our groundwork," Glicken said. However, they - and many more - have shared their music to help piece together this compilation in support of the renowned D.C.-based Energy Action Coalition, a group of more than 40 U.S. and Canadian-based organizations founded to strengthen the clean energy movement across North America.
It's an environmental mission that Green Owl believes extends beyond the compilation's release. "We consider ourselves more of a music company than a record label," he said, referencing its art, film and music releases - all of which have been produced and publicized in a sustainable and ethical fashion.
It's a message of environmentalism it tries to spread without being in your face. "We're not just going around preaching environmentalism," Glicken said. "We all want to live like this, and even more importantly, we don't want to be the only ones."
Green Owl's extension of the realm of environmentalism through musical means is a step in the right direction. One of the many things the label puts heavy emphasis on is electronic distribution.
Kiho Kim, director of AU's environmental studies department, said he acknowledges and admires Green Owl's ideals, but added that he's a bit skeptical of the measures' effectiveness.
"If a record label wants to truly be 'green,' why not stick to electronic distribution of material?" he said. But Kim also said "something is better than nothing."
While Glicken and company said that nothing is perfect when it comes to saving the world, it's all about baby steps.
"We're going to be signing more bands and coming out with more music," he said.
Glicker said he just hopes the rest of the music industry starts to jump on the environmentally friendly biodiesel bandwagon.
