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Whether it be world tours or studio construction, Gareth Stuckey is determined not to leave his mark! Instead he’s headed for neutral ground, where the air is clean and the beer is free.Text: Brad Watts

During October this year I extricated myself from the AT editorial bunker and headed up

to my old neighbourhood of Surry Hills in Sydney. The aim was to chase up a few tips I’d received regarding studios of interest in the district. My initial destination of appeal was the industrious, and literally underground operation of Gigpiglet Headquarters, a well equipped production facility run by the very capable Mr Gareth Stuckey.

Gareth has been mixing front of house and tour managing a number of acts over the last decade: Thirsty Merc, George and his mainstay gig of recent years, the inimitable Machine Gun Fellatio. More recently – after MGF’s demise in 2005 – its enigmatic lead vocalist, Pinky Beecroft (a.k.a. Matt Ford), has been rekindling his love of perspiring Australian gigging life with his band, Pinky Beecroft and the White Russians. The outfit is quite a departure from the alternative electronica gyrations of MGF, and Beecroft has shown a return to some pensive song writing and more traditional production ethics – all while keeping the majority of his clothes on. In charge of production, recording and mixing has been Gareth Stuckey, who I planned to chat with about the making of Pinky’s record, Somethin’ Somewhere Better.

But while we all like to discuss record making, it became apparent that there was an issue of far greater import than the making of yet another album (apologies Mr Beecroft).

What’s interesting about Gareth’s working ethic is the lengths he’ll go to keep the production process as carbon neutral as possible. One wouldn’t initially believe that record production could be such a contributor to global warming, but like everything we humans do on this planet, its waste products and power consumption damage the environment. Using electricity, driving fossil fuel-reliant vehicles to and fro’ studios and rehearsals, air-conditioning and CD packaging are all aspects of the recording process.

HOT COLD & NEUTRALBrad Watts: So tell me more about the carbon neutral aspect of your operation Gareth. I gather there are a lot of issues surrounding the studio’s carbon neutrality.

Gareth Stuckey: Definitely. Firstly we had to look at the ventilation. Obviously air-conditioning was out of the question; it’s just too expensive to run and incredibly environmentally unfriendly. But because Gigpiglet Headquarters is underground it can also get quite damp. To resolve all this I employed a ventilation specialist who came in and measured up the volume of the rooms and ascertained the air movement required to manage both the internal temperature and the humidity – now there are 12 fans throughout the building that extract air. They’re not silent, mind you; you can hear them ticking away but you can turn them all off when required. The air is replaced about three times an hour while they’re running so the relative humidity – at its worst – is only about 2% above the levels outside the building.

BW: So the air-con is keeping the dampness under control as well as cooling the spaces?

HOME GROWNREGULARS

GS: Exactly, and the rooms are also fully floating to improve isolation, cooling and air movement. The new walls are two inches off the structural cement, and there’s damp-proof Isofoam in the cavity. The floor then floats on 25mm Isofoam flooring. I’m really happy with it so far. the best aspect of it is that we’ve achieved a pretty constant temperature without the enormous carbon footprint. Okay, so it’s a bit cooler in winter and a bit warmer in summer, but overall it’s quite liveable without the usual power hungry ‘studio’ style air-conditioning.

BW: Has this always been an ambition for Gigpiglet?

GS: I got involved in the carbon-neutral pursuit as it became more prominent a few years ago. I’ve always been a bit of a hippie anyway. I don’t drive a car, I get on my bike. It’s all about the simple things you can do. Obviously I’m not anti-transport – riding my bike simply means one less car on the road.

I’ve just been in China for a weekend doing a show over there and I simply couldn’t believe it – it’s horrible. The smog is just incredible! We never want to live like that here, let me tell you. So for

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my part, I’m trying to live my life with a sensitivity to the environment around me, and my impact on it. It’s a sustainability thing. And the whole point of educating people about this is to encourage everyone to do their bit. If everyone takes little steps towards using less energy, we’ll all be much better off.

BW: You’re certainly passionate about the concept.

GS: Absolutely, it’s very important. I like the world! I’ll probably have kids one day and I’d like them to enjoy the world too. People often hassle me about it, but I’m not saying you’ve got to completely change your entire life, or avoid everything that’s detrimental to the environment. You’re not going to change the urban landscape 100% overnight but you can certainly make a difference.

CLIMATE FRIENDLYBW: So how are you tackling the other aspects like electricity use in the studio?

GS: A company called Climate Friendly is doing it for me. These guys measure, assess, offset, reduce, renew, and then reassess your carbon footprint. Just like anyone doing any kind of audit, they try and analyse what’s happening in your life as precisely as possible, to see what your work practices are like and how they can be made more efficient.

BW: So that means measuring your electricity use, water use and how much fuel you burn?

GS: Yep, all of those aspects. What’s fascinating about it is that a lot of your consumption can be traced back to the way you choose to do things. A big part of my lifestyle nowadays involves doing everything as locally as possible. I’ve been living in Waterloo for seven years or so now, and in that time I’ve managed to get this whole building fitted out with materials from this suburb alone. The plasterboard and timber were from a hardware store that’s literally a block from here. I even borrowed their big wheelie tray to wheel it all back here! A lot of the building materials are also from there, but I also use recycled materials wherever possible. Unfortunately that’s just a small portion of my overall footprint. When I’m touring, I’m flying everywhere, so when you look at the chart of my business’ ‘environmental outgoings’, air travel constitutes about 75% of it.

BW: So how do you begin to tackle all that aviation fuel being chewed up?

Pinky Beecroft & the White Russians’ album is barred from Woolworths and K Mart because it’s not in a plastic jewel case. The cover is made of recycled paper and/or plantation timber and printed with soy inks.

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GS: Again, that’s where Climate Friendly really comes into play. It calculates the C02 tonnage you’re accountable for by auditing your flight milage. You then pay them accordingly and they ‘offset’ my footprint by using that money to generate new renewable energy sources.

BW: Surely there’s still the worry though that Climate Friendly mightn’t be doing the right thing with your dollars at the other end?

GS: Exactly. This is why Climate Friendly is backed by the World Wildlife Federation and accredited by the Australian Government. All its projects are independently audited afterwards by the Voluntary Carbon Standard, Gold Standard, and the Australian GreenPower program. It invests the money into things like green power, wind farms, as well as supporting and funding other projects that will continue to offset my carbon outgoings into the future.

Another thing we’ve done at Gigpiglet is offer ‘offset’ tickets at our live shows. For $3 extra you can offset your average Sydneysider’s day out, even if they make no effort of their own. So anyone buying a ticket to our shows can choose to do that – it’s three bucks so it’s not a big outlay. That money goes through an account – not to me – that’s been setup through Oztix, who pays it directly to Climate Friendly. It then invests it in all the right places.

A few venues we use have also expressed interest in Green tickets, so I’ve hooked them up with Climate Friendly as well. Hopefully, the Jive Bar in Adelaide and The Annandale in Sydney will be offering the same thing soon. From there the whole thing snowballs hopefully. It’s a classic example of that old adage, ‘from little things, big things grow’. Then of course there’s CD packaging to worry about.

BW: By packaging I presume you mean the jewel case?

GS: Exactly. If you look at the packaging of the White Russians disc, you’ll notice it’s completely cardboard. Firstly I’d realised that plastic is shit, it’s a killer – there’s so much waste associated with it, and that’s aside from the waste incurred from its initial manufacture. So I designed this cover in conjunction with our distributor, Inertia. We’ve dispensed with the jewel case – it’s a big chunk of ugly plastic we don’t need anyway, and often that’s wrapped in plastic again for shipment to the shops. We’ve gotta stop using them. But although it’s an easy thing to say, so far it’s proved difficult to do.

BW: Why is that?

GS: Well the battle at the moment is trying to get cardboard packaging into the Woolworths and K-Mart stores; apparently their security systems require a jewel case. We’ve designed this on 100% recycled or plantation timber. It’s printed with soy inks, folds out, looks beautiful, and there’s not a trace of plastic in it. Yet these big chains won’t accept the format! It’s crazy when recycled card is becoming cheaper. I’ve noticed just from printing A3 posters, where two or three years ago I’d print 500 posters on recycled paper for around $1,000. Now it’s around $500. It’s all becoming cheaper, everybody’s just got to take these expenses on as part of everyday life.

FRIENDLY FOOTPRINTSTo get a clearer idea of how Climate Friendly get things rolling, I spoke with its Communications Executive, Jessica Miller.

Brad Watts: So Jessica, can you fill me in on just how you go about making Gigpiglet carbon neutral? How does the process actually work from Climate Friendly’s perspective?

Jessica Miller: I guess the first thing to mention is that we don’t tend to use the term ‘carbon-neutral’. The term is becoming increasingly throwaway. We tend to use the term ‘climate-friendly’, and then try and get people to think about what their carbon footprint is, where the emissions actually come from, and then what they can do to measure it, reduce it, and ultimately offset it. What we did with the Gigpiglet crew was initially send through a form that asked for some information about Gigpiglet’s enterprises and, from there, look at where most of the emissions of the business come from. As it turned out, the largest proportion of emissions was actually from air travel – about 74% of Gigpiglet’s total footprint.

BW: So how is that information ascertained?

JM: It’s a pretty simple process that starts with a data collection form. We gather all the data from activities that release greenhouse gas emissions – things like air travel, taxis and car rental, electricity, waste paper, and couriers… stuff like that. You look at how many kilowatts of energy you’re using each quarter, look at your invoices from all your taxis, put your head out the window and check how many bins you’ve got full out the front, and how many reams of paper you’re buying each quarter, and then we go from there. We use the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change and Greenhouse Gas Protocol, which is the international standard for measuring emissions output.

BW: So a separate body correlates that information with how much carbon is emitted?

JM: Primarily yes. We’ve got our own technorati carbon geeks that work it all out as well, but we go by the best international practice in terms of what the actual emissions factors are. Those protocols and standards are decided by the United Nations predominantly, on the advice of scientists that work in the field. And those systems are pretty standard across the globe.

BW: So what happens then? How does your company balance this up?

JM: Well, we do the calculations that determine the size of the footprint, and bear in mind we’re dealing with emissions that have already occurred – carbon that’s already out there. So if you’re super keen you can go, “right, I wanna get rid of that footprint so I’m gonna offset the whole lot right now.” To do this the client pays us a figure, and then we source carbon credits, usually from wind power projects internationally. We invest in renewable energy sources that don’t produce greenhouse gas emissions, or alternative energy sources that are more economically viable than coal-fired energy, because coal is one of the biggest causes of climate change.

BW: So you track down other companies that are putting together programs that fit the criteria?

Above: Jessica Miller at Splendour in the Grass, ‘manning’ the Climate Friendly booth.

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JM: Yeah, the problem is that because coal is so cheap, you’ve gotta dangle a pretty big carrot in front of investors to get them to back wind power. So if they’re able to generate an income over time through selling carbon credits, that’s a really good incentive. That’s our main agenda. There are two standards of projects we support: the Gold Standard and Voluntary Carbon Standard Projects. Basically what that means is there are independent auditors and assessments of these projects to make sure that they’re not all a load of crap, and that some businessman doesn’t run away with the cash in a suitcase. We’re also making sure the projects don’t cause more environmental damage than they aim to repair and that the communities these projects operate within are gaining a benefit as well. We also make sure that the credits being generated aren’t being double-sold. We have to verify the entire process.

BW: So, in a nutshell, if a business wants to build wind power generators and they need investment for it, you guys can channel funds towards that project?

JM: Yep, that’s what we do. We’re constantly looking for projects we can either help establish or continue to maintain through funding, but we only support projects that meet these criteria to make sure they’re actually having a positive impact. The way to recognise these is to look for a Voluntary Carbon Standard Project or a Gold Standard Project.

BW: I imagine there must be heaps of shonky dealers in this game at the moment.

JM: Oh yeah, dozens of them. But we’re also a member of an international group of offset providers who are gung-ho and making sure the industry remains credible and that there are some principles in place. There has to be confidence in the process.

BW: So who’s getting in on the act?

JM: Some of my favorite clients are small businesses that are super committed. I’ve got a hairdresser in Glebe who doesn’t buy a lot of offsets but he’s gone one better by managing to find ways to reduce his energy consumption within the salon. The music industry’s also really supportive. Splendour in the Grass has been a massive supporter from the very beginning, Missy Higgins is outstanding, Blue King Brown are outstanding, Powderfinger are outstanding (their Grand National Tour was incredibly successful in this regard), Homebake, Crowded House… there’s too many to mention.

One of my colleagues has his own thing going where he does these amazing festival recycling programs. He encourages people onsite to recycle by giving them drink tokens when they return their containers. It’s basically a ‘recycle for beer’ enterprise, it’s fantastic! And it’s so effective. The whole ground is immaculate because people are picking up their rubbish, taking it to the container recycling stations and getting beer tokens in exchange. And it marks a cultural shift as well; it’s not just that prescriptive greenie, hit-you-with-a-stick-until-you-recycle mentality, it’s really engaging – people feel like they can make a difference.

BW: Awesome, I’d be picking up stuff for beer, for sure!

“We’ve dispensed with the jewel case – it’s a big chunk of ugly plastic we don’t need anyway, and often that’s wrapped in plastic again for shipment to the shops. We’ve gotta stop using them.

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