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Beatrice "Bea" Jeavons, Co-Founder of FEAT.Live is an environmentalist hailing from Mparntwe, Alice Springs, now living and working on Kaurna Country. Combining her love for the outdoors with a passion for music and art, Bea wears many hats. She’s a co-founder, a freelance climate impact manager, a hiking guide, a writer and a trail runner. The thread that runs throughout her work: a passion to mobilise communities for collective climate action. With a spirit as boundless as the landscapes she roams, Bea’s amazing work bridges the gap between art and science for meaningful action on climate. ‘I believe in facing the climate crisis with proactive roll-up-your-sleeves action, peanut butter, and the art of rallying your mates around a good cause.’ Milly Young, head of our Women in Climate and Energy Fellowship, sits down with Bea to talk about climate action in the entertainment industry, her startup FEAT.Live and advice she has for people wanting to take action for climate.

You have an interesting career in the entertainment industry working with musicians, festivals, venues, touring groups and arts organisiations to reduce their climate impact. Why is climate action so important for this industry?

The environmental impact of the entertainment industry is huge and touring and live performance comes with consequences we can longer afford to ignore. Flights, powering up massive venues, shows, freight, audience travel, waste. It’s a lot.

Every industry needs to evolve, and the live performance sector has a special opportunity and role to play in driving change and bringing people together because we have creativity and storytelling to engage people on that change. With a huge platform and ability to communicate complex topics in ways people can understand and connect with, artists (if they choose to) have the capacity to make emerging technologies and regenerative design principles COOL. If Taylor Swift can’t make composting sexy, who can?

Tell us about your startup, FEAT.Live. What do you do and how did the idea come about?

FEAT.Live, founded in 2019 by Heidi Lenffer from the band Cloud Control, is spearheading a world-first sustainability surcharge on ticketing called the ‘Solar Slice’ where $1 or 1.5% of every ticket sales goes to fund emissions reduction measures and a range of science-backed climate solutions through our network of impact partners. This is designed to bake sustainability into the operational DNA of events and is currently being rolled out across Australia’s premier festivals and tours.

So far, the Solar Slice has been applied to over 200,000 tickets and we have been able to direct significant amounts of funding towards a bunch of projects across Australia. We’ve worked with Australia’s biggest festivals including Splendour in the Grass, Falls Festival, Laneway, and some of Australia's biggest artists including Tonne and I, Vance Joy, Angus and Julia Stone, Lime Cordiale, Jack River and Angie McMahnon.

If you're a venue, artists, festival or touring group, or anyone who sells tickets, we’d love to hear from you - [email protected]



What has been the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far at FEAT.Live?

The biggest challenge is that the majority of smaller artists, venues and festivals don’t have the budget, capacity, time or expertise to drive sustainability on the ground. And whilst we’re seeing leadership from acts like Jack Jonhson and Coldplay there is still a huge amount of work to do.

Those broader industry challenges (time, budget, capacity) trickle down to us and it’s hard to get customers (artists, venues and festivals) on board when they have so many other priorities. Even when the best intentions are there, when people are struggling, sustainability falls to the bottom of the priority list.

But our biggest challenge is also our biggest opportunity! There is a real appetite for action and we provide an easy pathway for artists and venues to reduce their impact via the FEAT.Live Solar Slice. With the funds raised from the Solar Slice we then help fund and resource the expertise required to roll out solutions on the ground!

Why did you decide to apply for the EnergyLab Women in Climate and Energy Fellowship and how has the fellowship helped you?

I was keen to throw a few ideas around and see how they turned out. It’s been great to validate some and let go of some others. We are always looking to expand our network of impact partners, so I was also keen to tap into a network of like minded founders driving change across other industries.

Practically, the learnings were great and the fellowship definitely helped me validate some good ideas and ‘retire’ others. It was a great reminder that learning from the wonky ideas is just as important as having really good ones and that it’s ok, (sometimes entirely necessary) to make mistakes, stumble a bit, and make a bit of a fool of yourself. It’s all part of the gloriously bumpy ride. Especially when you are carving a path forward in something new.

Emotionally, the fellowship has equipped me with more chutzpahIt. It can be tough for women out there, especially in the entrepreneurial space, but we’ve gotta back ourselves, and each other and our ideas. To be surrounded by so many incredible women, doing incredible things, sharing challenges and support both reduced and increased my imposter syndrome at the same time (in all the good ways though).

I can’t wait to see all these ideas sparkle and shine!



Can you give us a status update on FEAT.Live: what have you been working on lately?

There’s lots cooking in the FEAT.Live kitchen at the moment. Heidi and I have spent many a blue sky dreaming session on the cliff tops of the Bluey’s. Some exciting potential overseas partnerships, two campaigns in the works looking to launch later this year and ideas for new projects coming out the wazoo. Watch this space and find us on insta at @feat.artists and at FEAT.ltd

You juggle so many projects in the climate space! One of them is your personal side-hustle @creativeclimateaction, a platform where you share climate action and solutions advice. Can you give us your top three actions we can all take today to reduce our impact?

  1. Join a collective. As Bill McKibben says ‘the best way you can individually take action on climate is to be less of an individual’. A local co-op, climate action group, community garden, Climate Fresk, climate conversation, beach clean up. The list goes on. But the best way to get s**t done is together. Not only for max impact but because it’s much more fun with pals. And a shoulder to cry on / celebrate with is alway important with the corrugations of it all.
  2. Try to find common ground and try not to judge yourself or others. Climate solutions need to work for all of us, so we need to get along with diverse groups, and people who have different opinions and/or ideas to ours. We can sometimes find ourselves in eco chambers, made worse with social media. So whenever you can, make space for active listening and find common ground with those you disagree with.
  3. Align your finances with a safe climate future. Check out your financial institutions at Market Forces and if you’re not happy, make the switch. And tell all your friends, co-workers, and family. Why not host a divestment dinner party and make it a thing!

Check out this great clip from Make my Money Matter and Music Declares and this episode of the GreenPeace ‘Heaps Better’ podcast: How can we stop funding the climate crisis?'.

Any other words of wisdom for people wanting to join the climate movement?

There is a lot of work to do, but the opportunity to build a better world is endless. We are at a wild and wonderful time in history where we are shaping what happens next. You don’t have to quit your day job and run off to an NGO (although go for it if that’s your calling) because we need every industry to evolve, and every job needs to be a climate job, plus so many solutions lie in communities, so find a way to kickstart change in your circle of influence. Find what you love, sport, writing, campaigning, parenting, and find out how you can offer those skills to the climate movement. Upskilling with courses like Creative Climate Action and Work for Climate are a great place to start

To quote wilderness guide Bill Plotkin ‘If you can find the intersection between something you are passionate about and something the world actually needs, that sweet spot will be where you’ll be your happiest, and the most effective’.

Interested in joining EnergyLab’s Women in Climate and Energy Fellowship? Head over to our website to fill out an EOI form. If you have any questions, email Milly at [email protected].


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