Ms. Moon

So in order to be an ecologically responsible Blink, I tried to download Your Green Step but I couldn’t find it. 

Luckily the YG sustainability report gives me what I need to calculate it manually:



It even provided an example!

So along with Ms. Sun's numbers here are Ms. Moon's numbers:

1. Paris suburb to Gare du Nord:  By bus (40 mins, 8.3 km) = 8.3 * 68 = 564.4 g GHG
2. Gare du Nord to St Pancras: By Eurostar (2 hours 17 mins, 346 km) = 364 * 14 = 4,844 g GHG
3. Getting to accommodation:  Walk (7 mins, .5 km) = 0 (Yessssss, take that, Ms. Sun!)
St Pancras to Wembley:  Metro (underground, YG didn’t give me the metro calculation so I used this.) (42 minutes, 16.9 km) = 16.9 * 40.5 = 684.45

Ms.  Moon, who lives in Paris(ish) used four modes of transportation to travel approximately 371.7 km to attend the concert.  Her journey resulted in total emissions of 0,0060924tCO2eq.

Ok, this calculation is all well and good but, as an ecologically responsible Blink what, YG, can I do about my carbon footprint?  

They don't say so I thought to myself, what would Blackpink members, the Advocates for the United Nations Conference on Climate Change, do?

For some reason their travel is not included in the calculation despite the fact that they were sponsored by Korea Air for the Born Pink tour and apparently traveled by Private Jet.  

YG substainability report itself admits "substantial emissions typically associated with air travel" after stating that the "segment contributing most significantly to GHG emissions was identified as "audience travel".

 

 

So what do I, identfied as part of the "segment contributing most significally to GHG emissions", to do?

I guess I could walk and swim.  This would put me in par with reaching carbon neutrality along with YG by 2040.

In the meantime to offset my significant contribution of GHG to the concert I'll see about buying a $45 P-REC.  According to my calculations, this buys me 71,400 concerts. 

Sweet.

La réntree

So yesterday was the first day of school.  This year the class list was posted day of.  When the kids saw who their teacher was, my daughter off-handedly mentioned that her teacher was nice but wasn’t around a lot. 

Then I ran into her best friend’s mom who informed me that the teacher was in fact absent that day. 

Guess she’s sick, I thought.

At noon I got an email from the principal confirming this and using the word congé (leave) when describing the teacher’s absence.  

Very sick. 

Later I got another email informing us that they were able to find a substitute teacher until the end of the week.  

Oh that’s good.

When I went to pick them up another parent who’s part of the PTA informed me that the teacher was in fact coming back in March. 

 

Happy back to school! 

Substainabilabubu

So emissions reduction is one of 7 frameworks in YG’s plan for sustainable concerts which, according this this survey, 60% of Blinks are in agreement with:

Take that AKKADEMYs and Teumes!

Haha. Ok, on to serious business.  As an investigative reporter Blink here is my experience at Deadline for each Framework: 

01 GHG EMISSIONS MANAGEMENT





 "YOUR GREEN STEP" booth to calculate audience travel (identified as the biggest emitter of emissions).

Confirmed.  I saw one booth.  

02 IMPROVING CONCERT ACCESSIBILITY

Um.  I didn’t see anything specifically about this but we did get stuck trying to get in the turnstile rotating entrance doors so a lady let me in using the disabled entrance and that was flawless.  So, confirmed? 


03 FAN ENGAGEMENT

 

Confirmed.  

04 EMBRACING POSITIVE AND RESPECTFUL CONTENT



So I guess it's positive and respectful if you put on stockings and cover your legs?  Lisa’s Labubu outfit’s boots cover half the bottom part and maybe she’s wearing sheer stockings? 



Confirmedish? 

05 VENUE SAFETY MANAGEMENT



I actually wanted to leave the concert early because I know the nightmare it is getting onto public transport with the crowds but this was met with a lot of resistance so we stayed till the end.  I was pleasantly surprised because there were authorities there to stop everyone from cramming onto the metro.  

Confirmed. 

06 REDUCING ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF CONCERTS

Can’t say I saw anything but apparently in Seoul there was Blackpink paper pack bottled water that lowers the environmental burden. I wish I had, it would have been a lot cheaper than the 50£ t-shirts.  



Cost: 2,000 KRW (1£)

Unconfirmed (in London).

07 SUSTAINABLE CONCERT GOVERNANCE

I guess they started in 2023 Bornpink and they want to fully implement its sustainable concert framework by 2030.  Deadline is 2025 and I didn’t see any real slacking between the Bornpink pictures and Deadline so confirmed for now?

Conclusion:

01 GHG EMISSIONS MANAGEMENT - Since audience travel was identified as 95.8% of emissions this is the fan’s responsibility?

02 IMPROVING CONCERT ACCESSIBILITY - Venue’s responsibility?

03 FAN ENGAGEMENT - The cost of screens included in the price of the ticket?

04 EMBRACING POSITIVE AND RESPECTFUL CONTENT - The costs of tights probably also included in the ticket? 

05 VENUE SAFETY MANAGEMENT -  Venue’s responsibility/Local government?

07 SUSTAINABLE CONCERT GOVERNANCE (for YG) - YG.

So yeah, YG does what it does best (marketing) and ultimately the consumer fronts the bill.



Does this make me feel better about the price of the ticket?  It does not.  

Bonus:  When Spice Girls played in Wembley in 1998 the cost of a ticket was 18£. And yes there were big screens. 

Climate Action in your area

 So I ran across this video of Blackpink at Buckingham palace in 2023. Intrigued I googled why. 

Turns out King Charles III presented them Honorary MBEs for, wait for it, their work in the environmental field.

Real.ly? I googled further. 

The initial results were people pointing out the obvious contradiction of their work and the environment. Then I found this:

“BLACKPINK was appointed as Advocates for the United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP26) in 2020 and has been delivering powerful messages to the world ever since.”

I had no idea.  Maybe I’m not a Blink afterall.  Or maybe I could be an investigative Blink, like what concretely was done? 

And then I found this about YG, their parent company:

“As part of this initiative, YG Entertainment will offset the electricity consumption from BLACKPINK’s Seoul and London stops on their upcoming world tour using Peace-Renewable Energy Credits (P-RECs) generated by an IOM-managed solar plant in South Sudan and issued by Energy Peace Partners.”

So I actually don’t know what this means but it’s something like this.

I wasn’t able to find out how much they spent but I found this.   

 

Based on their [BORN PINK] FINALE IN SEOUL, 6,000 tons of emissions for a two day event.  Of the 6,000, 239 tons was from energy consumption.  

According to Energy Peace Partners, an average P-REC costs $45.  1 P-REC equals 1 megawatt-hour (MWh) of verified renewable energy.

How many megawatts is 239 tons of emissions? According to this website:

2,300 kilowatt-hours emits one ton of CO2e

2,300 kilowatt-hours converted to megawatt-hour:

0,0023 megawatt-hour = 1 ton of C02e

0.5497 megawatt-hour = 239 tons of C02e (two days concerts in Seoul)

0.5497 megawatt-hour * 2 (London + Séoul, both 2 day events) = 1.0994 megawatt-hour

1.0994 megawatt-hour = 1 P-REC

1 P-REC =  $45

So… to offset the estimated electricity consumption from BLACKPINK’s Seoul and London dates, they are going to buy one P-REC that costs $45? 

Someone check my math. 

Teddy bear

So if you were to ask me who my favorite Blackpink member is I’d say, Teddy. 

Blink:  Who is your favorite Black member?

Me: Teddy. 

Blink:  [blink, blink]

Me:  [heartshape with my hands]

Haha.  No seriously.  Teddy is their producer/songwriter.  He appears in “Light up the sky” as the mysterious guy wearing the mask you see at the beginning. 

Teddy is of my generation, born in Korea in 1978 and then moved to the east coast United States (holla) when he was young, then moved back to Korea in his adult years to be part of the kpop group 1TYM (one time, one time, two time, two time ) which came out with their first album in 1998, On Time for Your Mind.  So yeah you see the 90s influence. 

I listened to K-pop in the 90s but not 1TYM.  What was popular was H.O.T (Candy, anyone?).  

At the time K-pop wasn’t mainstream.  My Asian friends and I listened to it along with the mainstream stuff like Nirvana, Cranberries, No Doubt, Green Day, Coolio, TLC, 311, Atlantis Morissette, Spice Girls. 

Ah the Spice Girls.  Came out in the ‘94 when I was in highschool.  I remember everyone was asked which Spice Girl they were when the question came to me, I would say Sporty Spice probably because she was a brunette and the most modestly dressed.  The truth was, I wasn’t represented by any of them but when you have to pick, you do. 

Blackpink did Wannabe at their show in London.  Whether they are mainstream is debatable but H.O.T. would not have played to an audience of 70,000 strong in Wembly, London that’s for sure.  

Blink

Bruh

So I was in earshot of my nieces slamming each other:

Niece 1 [puts on sunglasses].

Niece 2:  You look like an aunt.  

Niece 1:  Well you look like mom’s sister.  

Thanks girls, thanks.