What is Music Media’s environmental impact?

The music media business has an undeniably large contribution to climate change and environmental disruption. The way the future looks depends on all relative industries making positive changes to the way operations are run. This is the direct result of a digital culture shift over the last two decades, which offsets the distributional impact from the music media business to the wider electronic consumption culture. When multiple industries shift into this digital era, it is hard to track the impact of just one (for example, the number of issues printed a month). Many of the ways we consume content is on multimedia electronic devices which leaves the responsibility of environmental impact ambiguous, or on the consumer. I have taken a look at how the music media business impacts our environment to better inform myself and other musicians of our digital impacts.

One of the biggest contributions to environmental waste in our industry is the hardware that is involved. While moving into a digital era may appear to be a positive move, the hardware and infrastructure waste changes that perception quickly. With the vast majority of general media being consumed on handheld electronic devices, we have created an almost ‘fast fashion’ culture towards these complicated and detrimental tools. This problem becomes much more prevalent as “increasing quantities and decreasing values of smaller electronic goods (e.g., the portable digital audio players that allow for the digitization of music delivery) may actively impede end‐of‐life strategies.”(Hog pg2). When the devices get cheaper and smaller, it makes it harder to recycle, especially given the market quantity. This issue is not just relevant to the consumption of music, but also production. Most hardware, for example, leads, circuitry, and accessories, will have an expected lifespan, and once the lifespan is over, we arbitrarily dispose of these items without considering a repair and reuse mindset.

In contrast, we can often not blame the consumer for this massive footprint our industry is leaving. Once many of the modern products we use malfunction or break, it's near impossible for the average person to repair or reuse. This has been seen in other industries like motor vehicles, once a simple enough machine for most people to fix, now is required to be taken to the dealership or garage for replacement parts. This is a clear sign of a capitalist consumer culture which is a major underlying issue in the music media business. Manufacturers have an incentive for their products to have a projectable lifespan in order to maintain this consumerism as it has massive potential for profit. As a result of this, Kyle Devine argues that “these commodities are not quite ‘made to be wasted’...in terms of both technology and fashion they are built to obsolesce.” (Devine pg380). These products are manufactured to outdate in order to make newer products relevant. We can be contemptuous with the fact we are using little to no paper, however, this doesn’t change much of our impact, but it shifts it to the consumer and device manufacturers. Most of these emissions are hard for us to comprehend as “a large proportion of digital music’s resource and energy quotients come from ‘indirect sources’” (Devine pg380). Server farms are one of these sources with a massive carbon footprint. These server farms are in large warehouses and are used to process all the data and information involved with consuming and creating a digital product. With a collective footprint “already similar in size to that of the airline industry and set to increase at least five-fold by 2020”,(Devine pg380) we need to be conscious of the impact we’re having and make changes towards a net gain in terms of the environmental awareness.

The change that is required for our industry to be sustainable is not just a monetary change. Although music production and consumption is playing a big role in carbon emissions and waste, it is also going to be prevalent in our recovery as a planet due to its massive cultural significance and influence. There is no scenario where we go on without music due to its environmental cost, as a result, the industry needs to be the face of change. Without the integral issues and life threatening advances of global warming at the foreground of our culture, we lose the potential to make a significant impact on the direction of the industry and wider global community. Be it in the music you write, or the articles you distribute each public figure has a responsibility to enlighten their surrounding culture. In this respect, I concur with Wilcott that in order to “empower sustainability, we – researchers, program managers, activists, engineers, and others engaged with practical sustain-abilities – need to actively create music as an integral component of those practices from which a sustainable culture can emerge.” (Wilcott pg1) That is to say, if the music and media we create can spread a more environmentally conscious culture, we can make a positive change to the way the industry is run.

A great example of public figures taking responsibility are the likes of Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton. They have used their global voice as a means to highlight climate issues, despite the hypocrisy of attaining their reach through Formula 1 and motor-sports. This is a humble and brave mindset that needs to be encouraged in the music media business as the first step in change is to admit there is a problem. I admire musicians and acts like Willie Nelson for his work on alternative bio-fuel (Coscarelli pg10) or Coldplay for their selfless decision not to tour until it can be beneficial for the environment, however the collateral damage done by music media and consumption is far outweighed by these few outliers.

I want to see a positive and sustainable future in every industry and I take it upon myself to be the change I want to see, but music is a commodity that I, like many others, am not willing to give up. In order to retain this cultural asset in every society, it is the responsibility of all to understand their impact and evolve to decrease it. With a shift in the environmental conscience of this industry, the mass contributors will be faced with an inevitable ultimatum, moving the industry into a more sustainable platform for growth. It is important to include music in this climate adaptation as it is an essential part of a future that is prosperous and culturally healthy.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Coscarelli, Joe. “The 15 Most Eco-Friendly Rockers.” Rolling Stone, Rolling Stone, 25 June 2018

Hogg, Nick, and Tim Jackson. “Digital Media and Dematerialization.” Wiley Online Library, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 29 Dec. 2008

Wolcott, Sara J. “The Role of Music in the Transition Towards a Culture of Sustainability.” Empowering Sustainability International Journal, UC Irvine , 5 Feb. 2016

Written by Jasper West