WHETHER it’s forsaking a gas guzzling limo in favour of driving a hybrid car to the Oscars, or fitting their homes with solar panels, many celebrities embraced green causes long before they became fashionable.
Just as a famous face can sell a perfume, stars of stage and screen can sell a cause and scores of them are doing more than merely putting their money where their mouth is.
%26quot;Whether it’s fashion or cultural trends, the entertainment industry has the ability to communicate to a global audience ideas that set forth actions and create change,%26quot; said Debbie Levin, president of the Environmental Media Association which promotes green issues through the entertainment industry.
%26quot;Early adapters, like Cameron Diaz, led the way and now with everyone from Kirsten Dunst to Maroon 5 to Will Ferrell driving hybrid cars, (it) sends the message that it’s cool to think and buy green,%26quot; Ms Levin said.
Here’s a list of some of the leading green celebrity players:
Roberty Redford: 30 years on board of Natural Resources Defence Council, founder of Sundance Preserve, winner of 1993 Earth Day award, 1987 United Nations Global 500 award. In April 2007, launches weekly three-hour slot called The Green, dedicated entirely to the environment, on his Sundance TV channel.
Leonardo DiCaprio: started the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation in 1998 to promote environmental issues, drives a hybrid car, currently writing and producing a feature length documentary on global warming called 11th Hour.
Brad Pitt: co-creator of design competition to build 20 affordable, reduced energy, environmentally friendly homes in New Orleans.
Sting: founder in 1989 of Rainforest Foundation to protect rainforests and their indigenous peoples.
Harrison Ford: vice-chairman of Conservation International, has a Central American ant named after him, won the Global Environmental Citizen Award in 2002.
Dave Mathews Band: offsets CO2 emissions produced by their multi-city tours by funding projects such as tree plantings and wind turbine construction.
Al Gore: former US vice-president whose climate change documentary An Inconvenient Truth won an Oscar, also nominated for 2007 Nobel Peace prize.
Pierce Brosnan: focuses on marine mammal and wetland protection, headlined Natural Resources Defence Council campaign against effects of Navy sonar on whales, awarded 1997 Green Cross International Environmental Leadership Award.
Cate Blanchett: plans to equip Sydney Theatre Company building with solar panels, rainwater collection systems to make it completely eco-friendly. Sydney home is fully powered by solar energy, donates to Forest Guardians.
Edward Norton: launched the BP Solar Neighbours Program in 2003 which matches each celebrity purchase of a solar energy home system with a solar installation in a low-income family home in Los Angeles.
Daryl Hannah: arrested in June 2006 for staging a 23-day tree sit-in during a bid to preserve an urban community garden in Los Angeles, travelled across America in 2005 in a biofuel car, home is entirely off-grid.
Richard Branson: Virgin Group chairman, a former global warming skeptic, who in September 2006 pledged to spend all profits from his airline and rail businesses (estimated $A3.64 billion over 10 years) on investments in biofuel research and projects to tackle emissions.
Alanis Morissette: given 2003 Environmental Media Association Missions in Music Award; campaigns against oil drilling in Alaska; has solar panels on home.
KT Tunstall: ran her US tour bus on biodiesel fuel, performed at eco-friendly %26quot;Golden Green%26quot; at the 2007 Golden Globe awards in Los Angeles.
Josh Hartnett, Orlando Bloom, Maroon 5, KT Tunstall: promoting 2007 Global Cool initiative to cut carbon emissions by encouraging people to turn off TVs, mobile-phone chargers and other energy-draining gadgets.
Jamie Oliver: celebrity chef, plans to power his Cornwall, England, restaurant by wind turbines. - NEIL YOUNG: 2004 North American tour fuelled entirely with biodiesel.
Willie Nelson: singer, co-partner in the Willie Nelson Biodiesel Company.
Barenaked Ladies: run their tour buses and trucks on biodiesel fuel.
Drivers of hybrid cars include: Cameron Diaz, Charlize Theron, Carole King, Kirsten Dunst, Billy Joel, Tom Hanks, Will Ferrell, Julia Roberts, Ted Danson, Woody Harrelson, Alanis Morissette, David Duchovny, Patricia Arquette, Jackson Browne, Larry David, Danny DeVito and Bill Maher.
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Andrew Upton - who are both artistic co-directors of the Sydney Theatre Company - want to make the business the first green building on Sydney Harbour.