The Music Industry Climate Collective and Music Climate Pact

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A few weeks ago we wrote an article on Greenwashing in the music industry. Some considered it to be nonsense but behold, there is something brewing in the music world with the launch of a Music Industry Climate Collective and a Music Climate Pact.

Music Industry Climate Collective

Sony Music Group, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group have now formed the Music Industry Climate Collective (MICC) to address environmental challenges related to the global climate, particularly within the music industry. This collaboration aims to amplify environmental stewardship and provide tailored recommendations and strategies for music companies of all sizes.

One of MICC’s first initiatives is to offer comprehensive guidance for measuring scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions, which are indirect emissions occurring in the music industry’s value chain, including product manufacturing, distribution, and licensing.

The MICC has worked with scientific experts to develop the first draft of this guidance, which will be available for industry participants to review. Additionally, the MICC has established an advisory council comprising independent record labels, value chain partners, and climate experts to gather broader industry input. The aim is to set a science-based standard, fostering climate resilience within the music sector. This initiative also aims to provide critical guidance to partner companies starting to measure their emissions and promote consistency in how music companies develop and disclose greenhouse gas inventories.

Music Climate Pact

Another initiative is the Music Climate Pact, which has as a vision “to harness the power of the music industry towards inspiring transformational action on the climate crisis.” By aligning as a sector, they stand to de-politicise sustainability and address their biggest environmental impacts in an efficient and collaborative way. “There is a lot of work to be done if we are to become a more sustainable industry, but we will be guided by climate science and take tangible, unified action and regularly update on our progress.”

The Pact’s founder signatories have committed to:

Take individual and collective action to measure and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions (scopes 1, 2 and 3)
By February 2022, have either signed the Science Based Targets standard commitment letter stating that we will commit to setting science-based targets or will have joined the Race to Zero programme
Work together as an industry to establish carbon measurement methodologies, tools and frameworks backed by climate science
Work in partnership with shared suppliers and digital streaming platforms (DSPs) to obtain data and drive emission reduction projects in a collaborative fashion
Support artists in speaking up on climate issues
Communicate openly with fans about the impacts of the music industry.

Businesses signing up after the launch must have already signed up to one of the two pathways.

Basically what is being presented by these two initiatives is a lot less than what we talked about in our initial article. So it remains to be seen if all this will be something else than just green windowdressing, after all Greenwashing is rampant with concert organisers for instance as we pointed out. And that is where the biggest money is these days for the traveling artists.

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