A text to improve: The Carbon Footprint of the Music Industry

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The carbon Footprint of the music Industry

Globally, live concerts and festivals generate up to 5 million tonnes of CO₂ per year, primarily from audience travel, energy use, and waste This figure is comparable in magnitude to the overall Scope 1 & 2 emissions produced by a “polluting” airline like EasyJet and Ryanair (see their sustainability performance), or the annual emission of more than 160,000 cars. where the event described in this article takes place, in the UK alone the figure is around 500,000 tonnes of CO₂. Music streaming, often perceived as a "green" alternative to phisical media, actualy contributes 35,000,000 tonnes of CO₂ annually due to the energy-intensive nature of data centers—a number set to continue increasing.

Using data from Sustainbility Data Hub™, the first open sustainability platform offering visibility on the sustainability performance of all companies, we can indeed compare the carbon emissions of the major players in this sector and other 5,000+ companies. The following 2 graphs examine the largest music companies by revenue, focusing on their carbon absolute emissions (ordered by revenue):

• Bertelsmann's carbon intensity: 7,4 MTCO₂/USD

• Spotify has the following carbon intensity: 0,3 MTCO₂/USD

• Universal Music Group: 2,9 MTCO₂/USD

• Sony Music Entertainment, with a carbon intensity of 1,6 MTCO₂/USD

• Warner Music Group: 1,4 MTCO₂/USD

source: Sustainability Data Hub™

Among the called-so “Big Three”—Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and Warner Music Group—the difference in carbon intensity is substantial, going from Warner Music 1,8 mTCO₂/EUR to Universal Music 185,7 MTCO/USD. This can be partially explained by the fact that CO2 emissions methodologies for Scope 3 emissions are relatively unstandardized even among the industry’s major players. Notably, among the three, Sony is the only company that does not report detailed figures for its Scope 1 and 2 emissions specifically for its Music division, while Warner Music does not publicly disclose its Scope 3 emissions.