With the current crazy heatwave in the UK and Europe putting the spotlight back on the climate emergency (assuming you’re not part of the “but what about 1976” brigade), it was apt that the Earth Fest event was taking place in London this week, which included a day at Sony Music’s UK HQ focused on how culture and creativity can “accelerate the transition to a sustainable future”.
That put the spotlight on various ongoing efforts to reduce the environmental impact of the music and wider entertainment industry, which includes initiatives around touring, digital media and physical media. In the latter domain, Warner Music this week announced a pilot scheme in the US around vinyl recycling with similar objectives to the ReDisco programme in France.
Back at Earth Fest, the record industry’s Music Climate Pact published a ten step guide for how music fans can reduce the environmental impact of streaming. Launching the guide, the project’s Roxy Erickson says “while much of the effort in creating sustainable digital music distribution clearly rests with the industry and with streaming providers, fans can play their part too”.
Record labels signed up the Music Climate Pact, Erickson explains, “have been making quiet strides with working groups focusing on priorities around vinyl production, digital engagement and climate training, because we know that a sustainable music industry requires change everywhere”.
But the organisation also wants music fans to “feel empowered as partners in this process”. Hence the streaming guide, which is supported by Deezer. Most of the tasks suggested in the guide are pretty basic, but they are still things that most music streamers probably don’t think to do.
They include things like downloading music within the streaming apps for more offline listening; using standard or lower quality music streams where audio quality doesn’t really matter; using apps in dark mode, listening with the screen off or enabling battery saving settings while listening; and turning off extra video or AI features which use more power if they’re not actually being used.
As more AI tools are added to streaming platforms, and as standalone music AI services come to market, there definitely needs to be more debate about the huge computer processing and power demands those create. But in the short term, people can help by switching those tools off if they’re not interested in using them, wherever that’s an option.
In a statement, Music Climate Pact says, “with just a few easy modifications in the way that all of us as music fans discover and access our favourite songs and albums online and via our personal devices, we can readily reduce the impact our music listening has on the environment – but without diluting the sonic experience and pleasure this gives us”.
And these “relatively marginal actions” could have “a measurable collective impact on creating a more sustainable future" if adopted by all music streamers across the planet on a consistent basis.
Putting the spotlight back on physical music products, Warner Music in the US has announced a pilot project with a network of independent record shops to make it easier for music fans to return “damaged or unplayable vinyl records”, with a view to better understanding how those records could be “directed towards potential material recovery pathways”, which might mean recycling them to make new records.
The initiative - similar to the ReDisco scheme run by the French indie label trade group FÉLIN - builds on recent research that Warner was involved in which demonstrated that unsold and unwanted records can be successfully reprocessed into new records while maintaining audio quality, and in a way that reduces the carbon footprint of vinyl production.