Words by Smiley Team
Calling on leaders for “urgent action”, going vegan and educating fans about climate change; Billie Eilish has done a lot to prove her environmentalist credentials.
She’s one of the most celebrated pop stars on the planet she hopes to defend, offering her a brilliant platform to drive change. Repeatedly, she puts this to the service of the environment. Looking back over the period since her initial breakthrough to fame, here are eight highlights from her climate campaign work.
Billie’s music often contains pertinent messages for people and the planet. Her song, All The Good Girls Go To Hell, for example, is a metaphor for climate collapse. Underneath the music video, she wrote: “Right now there are millions of people all over the world begging our leaders to pay attention. Our earth is warming up at an unprecedented rate, icecaps are melting, our oceans are rising, our wildlife is being poisoned and our forests are burning.”
In a viral video, she highlighted the threat of climate change, saying: “We cannot let this happen on our watch,” and calling for the public to take action against it.
For her 2020 world tour, she set out to make it “as green as possible”, teaming up with a non-profit that helps musicians with sustainability, Reverb. She banned plastic straws, fans were asked to bring their own water bottles, and everything else was recycled.
Anyone taking action for the climate received thanks in the form of a free ticket from Billie to her US and European tours. Teaming up with Global Citizen, she allowed environmentalists the chance to apply for tickets by detailing the action they’d taken.
She joined forces with scientists to create a video ahead of the 2021 climate summit, in which she urged world leaders: “We must stand together and speak up to save our planet, not just for us but for our future generations.”
The star has spoken to numerous journalists about the importance of taking climate action. In a bold interview with NME she said: “Hopefully the adults and the old people start listening to us [about climate change] so that we don’t all die.”
After growing up as a vegetarian, she made the switch to veganism in 2014 and recently launched her vegan perfume, Eilish.
On Instagram, she frequently posts about animal rights and how we must stop abusive behaviour towards fellow living creatures.
