Ineffectual things some bands do ...

CARBON OFFSETTING Ash and others may clap themselves on the back for offsetting their flights, but this is an oft-discredited method of compensating the environment for the damage already done.

BIO-BUSES

KT Tunstall, Bonnie Raitt and others have taken bio-diesel buses on tour, but biofuels are not a viable long-term alternative to carbon-based fuels as they require vast tracts of land.

RECYCLING CUPS

One of those "greenwash" gestures that some promoters encourage. They may add to a festival's feel-good factor, but plastic beer cups are a tiny percentage of a rock festival's carbon footprint.

ENTOURAGES

It hardly makes sense for a band to fly its entourage all over the world when perfectly good expertise is available for hire in each territory. As for Björk's 40-strong entourage at her last Irish performance - that's just wrong.

Effective things we could do ...

PLAY CROKER

Bands playing an urban venue such as Croke Park, with good public transport links, considerably reduce the environmental impact of a live music event. Fans' travel makes up between 80 and 90 per cent of music festivals' carbon footprint.

GO WITH A FRIEND

For out-of-town festivals, car-pooling would cut a festival's impact considerably. Radiohead worked out that if the average car travelling to their 2006 gigs had contained three people instead of two, the tour's CO2 output would have been reduced by 22 per cent.

MAKE BUSES EASIER

 Large-scale festivals in Ireland provide transport by bus, but too often, the service is oversubscribed, operates only at peak times and will sell only two-way tickets. How about a more regular and flexible bus service instead of hiring vast car-parking spaces?

GET INTO FOLK MUSIC

It might be boring, but at least those guitars don't have to be plugged in

© 2008 The Irish Times