Culture
14 Dec 21

Sony Music Group, Universal Music Group & Warner Music Group sign Music Carbon Pact

Under the Music Carbon Pact, the companies will sign up to one of two existing schemes - Science Based Targets or the SME Climate Commitment, the latter part of the the UN’s Race to Zero initiative. As a result, signatories must reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050, and achieve a 50% reduction by 2030.

Major record labels, including Sony Music Group, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group, have signed up to a new pact that pledges to collaborate on measuring carbon emissions in the music industry.

The Music Climate Pact aims to tackle the effects of climate change by “decarbonising” the music industry.

The initiative was launched by the UK’s Association of Independent Music (AIM) in collaboration with the record labels association, the BPI.

The Pact sets out “a series of high-level commitments that will serve as a declaration of intent for the global music sector”, including a commitment to either sign up to the Science Based Targets Initiative or join the UN’s Race to Zero programme by February 2022.

Both schemes require their participants to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by 2050 and achieve a 50 per cent reduction by 2030.

The Pact also requires record labels to encourage and platform their artists when speaking on climate issues and communicate transparently with music fans about the impacts of the music business.

Featuring Sony, Universal and Warner music groups; labels such as Beggars Group, BMG, Brownswood Recordings, Ninja Tune, Secretly Group, Warp and Partisan Records also joined the Music Climate Pact.

“The Music Climate Pact shows the willingness of the whole music industry to work collaboratively on climate issues," Paul Redding, CEO of Beggars Group (UK), said today. "Building on IMPALA’s project to develop a carbon calculator tool, all signatories will be pulling in the same direction on sustainability topics."

“This will help our industry achieve carbon reductions more efficiently as we carry out the same work, in the same way, at the same time.”

Coldplay recently announced plans to make their 2022 world tour as environmentally-friendly as possible, with bands like Massive Attack, Foals and artist such as Billie Eilish changing the way in which they travel the world to perform.

“Playing live and finding connection with people is ultimately why we exist as a band. We’ve been planning this tour for years, and we’re super excited to play songs from across our whole time together,” Coldplay said in a statement. “At the same time, we’re very conscious that the planet is facing a climate crisis. So we’ve spent the last two years consulting with environmental experts to make this tour as sustainable as possible, and, just as importantly, to harness the tour’s potential to push things forward.”