Wang Leehom goes green

The pop idol is leading the way and going eco-friendly with his album covers, concert sets and a green endorsement of Timberland products, Gan Tian reports.

How do you make a pop concert eco-friendly? Mandopop star Wang Leehom has some big ideas.

Start by making the ticket not only biodegradable, but green - literally. Made from recycled paper, each ticket also contains seeds embedded in the paper - and if it is watered and placed in sunshine, grass will grow from it.

The concert venue was also decorated like grassland with old tires hanging on the walls and white cotton sheets on the ground. Some concertgoers were perched on a green carpet while others sat on wooden crates.

This was Wang's latest concert Fellowship of Earthkeepers 2010 at Beijing's Star Live House. Held in collaboration with American outdoor label Timberland, the concert is to spread eco-friendly ideas through both the fashion and music industries.

Wearing a white-and-gray cotton T-shirt, Wang sang a couple of his most well-known songs, including Change Me, The Only, and Our Song.

Wang says his recent albums are now "more eco-friendly than before".

When he was recording his album Change Me in 2007, his company decided to use an album cover that would use a lot of plastics. Wang vetoed the proposal, and argued for a simpler design.

Finally, he wowed his fans with a simple CD using recycled paper as packing material. The album cover featured two sepia-tinted photos of Wang, holding a glass of water and a plant's root in his hands.

After the concert, Wang announced the four winners of the Earthkeepers T-shirt design contest, initiated by Timberland.

One of the winning T-shirts featured a giant shoe by Terry Tang from Hong Kong, composed entirely of trees and animals, which Tang says representing harmony between humans and nature. Liu Ximeng from the mainland used green, brown and red colors to create a tree, with grass, earth and maples.

These T-shirts will be featured in Timberland's collection Earthkeeper, to be launched on next year's Earth Day, and made available at Timberland boutiques.

Proceeds will go to a tree-planting project in Horqin, in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region.