Billie Eilish voices her support for Climate Activism and reveals her passion for the environment

January 12th, 2023

Billie Eilish, the seven-time Grammy winner, has her eyes set on the more important objective of preserving the environment. She says in a strong and steadfast voice,  "I've tried my hardest not to be in people's faces about it. People don't react well to that, so. Because you're like, the shit out of everyone, it makes the causes you support appear horrible.” Read on to know more about her efforts to fight climate change and promote a more sustainable way of life.

Eilish set up Eco-Villages

But she has made an effort to inform people. As part of her Happier Than Ever world tour in 2022, Eilish partnered with Reverb, a nonprofit organisation that has "greened" the tours of other performers like Maroon 5 and Harry Styles, to build up Eco-Villages at her concert sites. Fans could register to vote, fill up their water bottles for free, and learn about environmental nonprofits, with a focus on BIPOC- and women-led groups, inside those areas. She states, "I'm still not forcing information down people's throats. "I'm more like, I'm not going to direct you. Just allow me to explain why I do this.”

Image Source: Vogue

Eilish’s longstanding commitment to the environment

Eilish's dedication to the environment extends beyond only her live performances. When she wore Fernando Garcia and Laura Kim's design, a voluminous tulle Old Hollywood gown with a 15-foot train, to her first Met Gala in 2021, which she co-chaired with fellow Gen Z actors Timothée Chalamet, Naomi Osaka, and Amanda Gorman, she famously obtained a guarantee from the brand's creative directors to stop selling fur. "Look at me! I don't want to be paraded about like that. I'm changing things. I just want to be the change and stop talking about it," she says while drinking from a reusable blue water bottle. Eilish is the first to admit how unimpressed she is with herself, despite her good deeds.

"I shouldn't be producing anything. I have no business selling anything. It's just more trash that will eventually end up in a landfill. I'm aware of that. However, nobody will cease wearing clothes. Nobody is going to stop producing things. So, I just try to do it as well as I can.”

Image Source: Green is the New Black

Raising awareness for climate change through her music

True to her word, Eilish utilised a run of gigs at London's O2 arena last year to launch Overheated, a concurrent six-day climate awareness event titled after a different song from her previous album. (The song is also about one thing—body shaming—but also numerous other issues.) The brother-and-sister duo, who organised the conference and hosted a Youth Activist Zone and Overheated documentary screenings, allowed other artists, sustainable fashion designers, and campaigners take the lead. Tori Tsui, 29, a native of Hong Kong and the speaker of Overheated, compares Eilish's actions in London to a Trojan horse. “The majority probably would have preferred to hear Billie speak. But consider how effective it would be to use your platform to reach a group of people who are aware of the climate crisis but aren't yet completely involved. And then utilise that to bring attention to some of the topics that don't receive it as much?" explained Tsui.

Planning a mini climate change summit

For the January cover of Vogue, Eilish was eager to plan an occasion akin to Overheated. She invited Tsui and a number of young activists and organisers to join her in a discussion about the environment. The youngest activist, Ryan Berberet, who organised a climate strike at her high school and has been working to get California Governor Gavin Newsom to declare a climate emergency, is 16 and is coming to the shoot with her mother. All of the activists are under the age of 30. The other climate activists there, in addition to Berberet and Tsui, are Quannah Chasinghorse, a model and Indigenous rights activist, and environmental educator Isaias Hernandez, also known to his supporters as Queer Brown Vegan. 

Additionally, there was Wanjiku "Wawa" Gatheru, a Rhodes Scholar and the creator of Black Girl Environmentalist, as well as Fridays for Future organiser and co-founder of the Re-Earth Initiative Xiye Bastida, sustainable clothing designer and animator Maya Penn, Nalleli Cobo, who worked to pressure Big Oil to seal off a hazardous well in her neighbourhood, and Nalleli Cobo. Maggie Baird, is the founder of the NGO Support + Feed and also Billie’s mom. Eilish quipped, "my mom is the most tenacious and passionate person. She is the reason I know anything.”

Image Source: Vogue

Billie’s mom motivated her to work for climate change

As an actress, playwright, improv instructor, and music teacher, Baird has, in her own words, "worn many hats." She is currently the executive director the nonprofit organisation she started during the pandemic to deliver plant-based meals to populations who are food insecure. Her daughter has cited her as their major climate change motivation. Baird has maintained her commitment to activism throughout her various career changes, from raising her children to be vegetarian and then vegan to spearheading efforts to make Eilish's tour sustainable to her own work with Support + Feed, which has grown to 10 locations in a short period of time. Additionally, the mother-daughter team enjoys learning.

Baird admits, "It was wildly eye-opening when I started getting an education on the world of food insecurity. I was aware of food deserts, but I was unaware of their severity. Can you even get to a grocery shop where you live? Does your supermarket carry any fresh food? And how much does it cost? The phrase "food apartheid" is more appropriate because our society's institutionalized racism largely determines access to food.”

Eilish speaks distastefully of the prerequisites for her tours

Eilish accepts, "I must travel via plane, but I detest it.” Eilish is dedicated to finding creative solutions for travel, unlike other performers of her calibre who fly privately. According to reports, her commitment to reducing her carbon footprint led in the saving of 8.8 million gallons of water and the neutralisation of 15,000+ tonnes of CO2, which is "equal to pulling 3,000 households off the electric grid for a year." When Eilish enlisted thousands of her fans to donate, nearly a million dollars were raised.

Image Source: Billboard

Billie’s hope for the future

"We all wish we could just handle things on our own. I wish I could just transform my life and save the world alone. Live off the grid and cultivate my own food. But all that does is delete me, erase my carbon impact. However, if everyone did just half of what they ought to, we could resolve this,” she affirms on a positive note.