"In the spirit of sustainability," comedian JACK WHITEHALL joked while hosting the BRIT AWARDS Tuesday night, "the Brits have been recycling all sorts of excuses for why there were so few women nominated.” It's funny because it's true. The only female nominated as the featured performer in any category that didn't have the word "Female" in it was singer-songwriter MABEL. She didn't win. LEWIS CAPALDI bested her for both BEST NEW ARTIST and BEST SONG, while British rapper DAVE, whose performance during the ceremony prompted the BBC to call BORIS JOHNSON's office for comment (the request was declined), scored best album for his acclaimed PSYCHODRAMA. The Brits couldn't think of any women to even nominate for that last category, or for Best British Group. The Brit Awards, of course, don't have a monopoly on allowing men to monopolize everything. In a blog post earlier Tuesday, VICK BAIN, former chief executive of the BRITISH ACADEMY OF SONGWRITERS, COMPOSERS AND AUTHORS, noted women's struggles to get recognized for any number of awards, get booked at festivals or simply find work. Bain recently researched the rosters of British music publishing organizations and found that "only 14% of songwriters/composers are female and that only 20% of artists on the label rosters are female." "One issue," she wrote Tuesday, "compounds the next." This is what women on the other side of the Atlantic have been saying for years about the absence of a level playing field for women at the GRAMMY AWARDS, on festival bills and on country radio, to take three of the most obvious examples. Radio play. Live bookings. Awards. One issue does indeed compound the next. MELINDA NEWMAN offered some "encouraging signs" on the country radio front in a lengthy BILLBOARD report that relied on anecdotal evidence of recent successes, in contrast to the hard data revealed a day earlier by researcher JADA W. WATSON, which suggested the picture remains bleak. Some country label executives told Newman that radio programmers are consciously trying to find more space for women, while one, WARNER MUSIC NASHVILLE CEO JOHN ESPOSITO, said performers like INGRID ANDRESS are finding their way to radio programmers strictly on the strength of their songs and voices. "I don't believe for a second that they added her because she was a female," Esposito said. You get the sense that execs feel compelled to stress that bullet point. Left unsaid is that country radio programmers for years have been giving shots to male singers because they're men. The best—and most simple—way to level the playing field is to stop doing that... Jack Whitehall's Brits joke was funny, also, because it played on the music industry's growing interest in recycling and other environmental issues. The spirit of sustainability is strong indeed. In a very good longread for the NEW YORKER on how touring musicians are rethinking their routines, from how they tour to how extensively they tour to how frequently they tour, AMANDA PETRUSICH tabulates the environmental damage that can be done by short-haul flights, buses that run nearly 24 hours a day and other staples of the live music world. (She compares this with the not inconsiderable damage done by the recorded music industry, where streaming music is generating far more greenhouse gases than the industry was generating at the height of the CD era). One culprit that seems of particular interest as summer festival season nears: radius clauses and other exclusivity demands, which sometimes seem almost comical, but which can extract environmental consequences by forcing artists to route tours inefficiently. Maybe festival promoters could give up some exclusivity in exchange for a few more minutes of life on the planet. In the same vein: Going out to see local bands isn't just good for supporting your town's culture; it's good for Mother Earth. MusicSET: "Green Days: The Music Biz Tackles the Environment."