More Than Just Music and Stunts – A Corporate Social Responsibility
Despite the fact that the main focus of the Vans Warped Tour happens to be on putting up great music for the people, but raising concern about environment issues has also been an equally important priority for them. Vans Warped Tour launched a Warped Eco-Initiative which made it the most environment friendly event in North America. With the initiative, the Vans Warped Tour switched over to bio diesel for running their tour buses and production trucks. Having more than 17 tour buses and close to 19 production trucks, running around in the US for two months, meant consuming a lot of fuel. Having been converted to bio diesel, Vans Warped Tour significantly reduced the usage of traditional fuel and thereby reduced a lot of pollution. By utilizing a renewable resource such as bio diesel, Vans Warped Tour proved the fact that bio diesel could actually be used on a regular basis and yet meet the essential efficiency requirements.
Everyone involved in the Vans Warped Tour propagates and encourages following the three R’s of Restoration:
A. Reduce the consumption of non renewable resources.
B. Reuse the existing articles before trashing them.
C. Recycle products and articles.
Warped Eco-Initiative has become a cult movement which has greatly inspired the youth to take the first step in restoring beauty on the planet earth. The youth have been overly keyed up to stand for the cause and make an attempt for the big change. And it’s not that the Vans Warped Tour has no incentive for them- volunteers are provided free access to the tour and are given away a whole lot of goodies like T-shirts, caps, souvenirs and many other items.
Vans Warped Tour believes in giving back to the society. At the open atmosphere, the tour builds up booths where you can find a number of vendors addressing socially relevant causes. The vendors constitute environmental rights activists, civil rights activists and even anti-racism organizations. Leaving aside these, a number of charitable organizations such as Teen Suicides, National Hope Line Network, and many more are also set up at the tour. In fact a tent by the name of ‘Girl Garage’ addresses the issues in an innovative way. The fans that happen to visit the tent are asked to design their T-shirts and bid for Vans shoes. All the proceedings from the sale of T-shirts and the shoes go to the suicide charitable trusts.
The Vans Warped Tour also contributes to causes such as the American Red Cross, Cancer Care and even AIDS research centers. In fact, with the sale of every 4 tickets at the tour, $1 gets credited to ‘Camp Hollywood Heart’- an institution that takes care of the families that have been affected by HIV/AIDS. In 2005, the tour contributed more than two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to the victims of hurricane Katrina. But money is not only the way through which they contribute/donate – many times, artists of the tour come together and supply prefabricated homes to the families in need.