Going green on the red carpet.

Rising stars in the worlds of music and entertainment have the voice and popularity to shape a generation.

Ryan Leslie is no stranger to the spotlight.  His recent signing to Universal by way of Sean “P-Diddy” Combs, has thrust him into into a fast-paced world of private jets, tour busses, and a lifestyle surrounded by excess.

I think that my voice will be chiming in with the voices that everyone’s been hearing over the past few years, especially with the work of someone like an Al Gore, who’s really brought to the forefront in a very cool way the importance of taking stock in the environment and the smart use of our natural resources.

Ryan’s talents both as a singer and forward thinking entrepreneur give even more depth to his powerful voice and message.

For more of our exclusive interview with Ryan Leslie, click below.

Q: How do you use your fame, your celebrity, your resources to get people to change their minds about the environment, especially your fans?

A: I think that my voice will be chiming in with the voices that everyone’s been hearing over the past few years, especially with the work of someone like an Al Gore, who’s really brought to the forefront in a very cool way the importance of taking stock in the environment and the smart use of our natural resources.  My voice is that I’m a digital company.

I live in a digital world of YouTube and MySpace, and one of the initiatives that we’ve just undertaken is to make my entire organization Green in that we’ve digitized it. So no printing of emails, all of our favorite magazine articles we scan, all of our favorite newspapers, all of our favorite photographs and everything, unless we have to, we don’t print them.  We have an actual archive of my entire life over the past probably two and a half years and it’s a full blown project because we’re still working on it,  is contained on 3, one terabyte hard drives.

We’ve taken all those magazines, newspapers, and the requisite bottles and recycling etcetera.  But I think that the youth really already understand, and especially now, it’s October and it’s still warm outside, they really understand that there are some serious changes that are happening in the environment and unless we take some responsibility, we’re not going to be able to afford those resources to our children and our grandchildren and they won’t be able to experience life on earth that way that we were able to.

Q: Now you’re out on the road a lot using tour busses going to huge events where there’s a lot of product and a lot of waste.  Is there anything your organization is doing about this?

A: I would say that tour bussing is a lot better than jetting.  When we go on the road, we bunk.  So that means there’s 12 guys in a bus.  We’re clean people, mind you but we’re not using every night to check into a hotel all that other stuff.  We’re really just trying to conserve for financial reasons but also because it’s better for the environment.