We had planned to plant a whole load more trees in our field here at Pickhams in East Sussex, but as the property is on the market (with Lewes Estates) and we won’t be here to care for them for their first few important growing years, I’ve donated to the National Trust instead to plant and care for trees on land at their properties.

If you’re interested in donating to plant a tree (or more than one!) here’s the link: https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/support-us/plant-a-tree

Although we don’t see this as carbon offsetting, minimising our impact on the environment is always in our mind as we do travel a lot with our music. Looking at our map of events for this year, there are a handful that are near enough to railway stations for us to be able to take the train. Taxis or lifts from a neighbouring station might be a possibility for others if we can perhaps negotiate that with organisers. For those events that we will need to drive to, we’ll try to tie in with other gigs in the area to avoid too much to-ing and fro-ing. And for festivals there is always the possibility of car sharing with other musicians on the bill.

Another measure we are taking in our bid to step lightly on the earth is changing our bank accounts to more ethical providers. We also avoid the plastic jewel cases for our albums on CD and are mindful of the quantities, suppliers and materials for other merch that we produce.

If you have others ways of improving the carbon footprint of touring musicians, please let us know.