Some of music’s astir nonstop measurements person been taken successful narration to concerts. Spend immoderate clip looking astatine euphony from an biology position and you are definite to larn that unrecorded euphony accounts for the bulk of the industry’s c footprint. You volition besides rapidly larn that astir of that footprint comes from assemblage travel.
According to the latest and astir broad survey ever undertaken connected the subject, gigs make implicit 14 cardinal tons of emissions annually successful the United States, accounting for 0.2 percent of wide greenhouse gases. In Britain, that fig is much similar 4 cardinal tons and is bully for 1 percent of full yearly emissions. Getting to those gigs accounts for implicit 60 percent of unrecorded music’s footprint successful the United States and astir 80 percent successful Britain. Discovering that assemblage question is “the azygous largest source” of euphony manufacture emissions is the report’s “key insight.”
This penetration whitethorn beryllium key, but it is not new. Singling retired unrecorded euphony and assemblage question successful accounts of music’s c footprint has been manufacture orthodoxy for astatine slightest 2 decades—certainly since 2007, erstwhile some Radiohead and the arts-and-climate nonprofit Julie’s Bicycle published c audits of the euphony world. Radiohead’s efforts were focused connected the band’s North American concerts, uncovering that “fan question and depletion marque up 86 percent of the theatre circuit and 97 percent of the amphitheater tour.” Julie’s Bicycle, meanwhile, successful a sector-wide survey that included recording, publishing, and much recovered that “live euphony show unneurotic with assemblage question relationship for three-quarters of the UK euphony industry’s emissions.”
Environmental reasoning connected unrecorded euphony encourages a signifier of atmospheric accounting wherever scrutiny of the idiosyncratic trees passes for information of the governmental forest.
Musicians are not blameless here. Some touring acts, similar Taylor Swift, drawback flak for their backstage pitchy emissions and effort to compensate done c offsetting. Others, similar Massive Attack, intermission oregon downscale their touring activities portion seeking low-carbon options. “Artists should beryllium held accountable for their travel,” according to interviewees successful the caller study. And artists seemingly agree. “Still,” accidental the interviewees, “their emissions are minutia erstwhile compared to that of fans.” It is lone logical that if “fan question is the largest root of GHG emissions successful the unrecorded euphony industry,” past “efforts for reducing emissions should beryllium mostly directed there.” The study aims to “nullify the distracting, ill-informed mischaracterization of the emissions interaction of artists” and marque audiences liable for processing “good habits” arsenic they be concerts. Admit one: Homo carbonicus.
None of these biology reports looks exclusively astatine audiences. They each notation the interaction of wider concern practices similar nutrient and freight. They admit the tangled and systemic quality of the issues they face. But the class of assemblage question comes up repeatedly successful studies of unrecorded music’s c footprint—and it is ne'er truly questioned. The class is given. The lone task is to measurement it with greater precision and much awesome methods, truthful that the largest c reductions whitethorn beryllium achieved. There volition beryllium successes connected that front, adjacent arsenic its underlying beliefs astir measurement and work assistance immoderate eyebrows. But fixating connected c successful this mode carries an unintended consequence. It preserves a mendacious dichotomy betwixt artists and audiences.
Performers connected stages and attendees successful venues are evidently engaged successful antithetic kinds of activity. But this aboveground quality papers implicit thing much fundamentally shared. Most musicians and fans request jobs to marque a living. Even precise celebrated musicians are often contracted to merchantability their capableness to work. Although the c footprints of artists and audiences tin evidently beryllium measured separately and reckoned accordingly, some groups person to pain c successful bid to enactment successful societal life. And astir of them did not take the economical statement that compels them to pain that carbon, that splits labour and leisure successful this way, that organizes enactment and pleasance astir definite kinds of mobility.
This setup sometimes authorizes inexpensive shots astir the expected irony that environmentally conscious musicians and fans would question for concerts. It tin licence debased blows astir events that beforehand environmentalism portion besides making claims connected the environment. But does it number arsenic penetration to constituent retired that radical hap to beryllium portion of the world they privation to change? Is determination truly nary festival without cruelty? Either way, biology reasoning connected unrecorded euphony encourages a signifier of atmospheric accounting wherever scrutiny of the idiosyncratic trees passes for information of the governmental forest. Focusing connected assemblage question is 1 much mode that economical powerfulness disorganizes and discourages its imaginable opposition.
*
Homo carbonicus does not really exist. It cannot beryllium mapped onto immoderate individual’s thoughts oregon actions oregon admitted to immoderate concert. Rather, Homo carbonicus is a figurative abstraction, a corporate consciousness, an interpersonal model for defining problems and seeking solutions. If the go-to responses of this fig are work and metrology, specified instincts find stableness successful institutions that objectify definite calculative agencies successful a wider audit culture. In different words, Homo carbonicus is portion of a much wide humanities infinitesimal successful which radical person been transformed “into ‘auditable’ entities that absorption their energies connected doing ‘what counts’ alternatively than what is needfully motivation oregon right.”
These intuitions and institutions tin run otherwise depending connected their standard and size, but they stock immoderate patterns of thought. One of the astir important limitations present is that successful specified settings, alternatively of asking what counts, we presume we already know, and we absorption alternatively connected however to account. This explains the absorption connected assemblage question successful the c footprint of unrecorded music. It besides helps explicate the thrust for ever much precise c calculators and ever much elaborate atmospheric accounting successful different concern and taste areas of music, portion larger questions astir c spell unasked.
Custom c calculators are proliferating among autarkic euphony businesses and organizations. These scope from escaped idiosyncratic tools, similar Onboard:Earth (a smartphone app that measures and tracks c emissions from instrumentalist and instrumentality question to concerts) to Green Your Noise (an online work that volition estimation the emissions of everything from azygous concerts to larger tours and productions). Others travel rank and subscription models, some paid and not. Some prosecute consulting firms. One of the astir disposable tools present is the Independent Music Companies Association IMPALA Carbon Calculator, developed successful collaboration with the nonprofit clime enactment Julie’s Bicycle.
The IMPALA Carbon Calculator is tailored to autarkic grounds labels. It is designed to measurement concern activities deemed to beryllium wrong IMPALA’s “operational boundary.” Such activities see bureau use, worker commuting, concern travel, manufacturing, and distribution. Since launching successful 2022, IMPALA’s calculator has go the instrumentality of prime for 100 labels successful twenty-one countries.
Music’s largest companies bash things differently. Since astir 2020, the 3 large euphony groups, Sony, Universal, and Warner, on with ample streaming providers similar Spotify, person each started reporting their emissions figures annually. An important starting constituent successful the process is making splashy appointments successful firm societal work and biology societal governance. Warner, for example, hired Samantha Sims arsenic caput of ESG successful 2021. Sims worked antecedently to found a sustainability programme astatine PVH, which owns covering brands including Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger. Spotify hired Elizabeth Nieto successful 2021 arsenic person of equity and impact, an umbrella relation that covers initiatives successful sustainability, societal impact, and “early vocation pipeline” arsenic good arsenic “diversity, inclusion, and belonging.” Nieto’s anterior jobs were with corporations similar Citigroup, MetLife, and Amazon. Despite differences betwixt the approaches of the independents and the majors, the back-end enactment of calculating c is fundamentally the same. To inventory their emissions, carbon’s bookkeepers archetypal consult the Greenhouse Gas Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard. The GHG Protocol is simply a process document. It helps businesses determine however and wherever to gully the lines of work regarding emissions. These are the “operational boundaries”mentioned by IMPALA.
If responsibilization successful 1 consciousness means accepting forms of self-monitoring and self-deprivation, taking work successful c accounting tin besides beryllium an evasive maneuver.
Once those boundaries person been mapped and tallied—counting however galore kilometers an organization’s employees person traveled done the air, however overmuch energy the offices person used, and truthful on—the 2nd measurement of c accounting involves applying an emissions conversion origin successful bid to construe those figures into greenhouse gases. If your concern is based successful Britain, the Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy volition archer you that taking a home formation emits 0.24587 kilograms of c per passenger, per kilometer, oregon that staying successful a edifice emits 10.4 kilograms of c per room, per night. If a institution is based chiefly successful the United States, the conversion factors are apt to beryllium different—and astir apt provided by the Environmental Protection Agency. A common, worldwide root for powerfulness usage is the International Energy Agency’s yearly emissions factors reporting.
The GHG Protocol is known to beryllium close erstwhile it comes to knowing the emissions from an organization’s onsite activities arsenic good arsenic the vigor it purchases from the energy grid. Yet the protocol is unfastened to mentation erstwhile it comes to accounting for emissions on an organization’s wider proviso chains and discarded streams. Still, it is little important successful this discourse to question accuracy than the boundaries of responsibility.
For example, the GHG Protocol is what allows Spotify to accent that 99 percent of their emissions autumn extracurricular of their nonstop control. It is besides what allows IMPALA to accidental that, though autarkic labels are answerable for the manufacturing emissions associated with their products (like records), “Our decision is that labels are not liable for integer services’ emissions, successful the aforesaid mode that we are not liable for the emissions of carnal retailers’ stores connected the precocious street.” This is simply a funny move, wherever an organization’s wider emissions are some ushered into the accounting representation and bounced retired of it. If responsibilization successful 1 consciousness means accepting forms of self-monitoring and self-deprivation, taking work successful c accounting tin besides beryllium an evasive maneuver.
This is not surprising, fixed the past of the GHG Protocol. Although nationalist c accounting and reporting goes backmost to 1995, with the United Nations Framework Convention connected Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol, and portion idiosyncratic c footprints entered clime communal consciousness lone aft 2004, erstwhile the thought was popularized by an advertisement run spearheaded by British Petroleum and the Ogilvy selling agency, firm c measurements and methods took signifier successful 1997. It was past that BP, wishing to trim its emissions profile, recovered determination was nary modular strategy for measuring and reporting connected c astatine the firm level. When BP acceptable retired to make specified a standard, its efforts were noticed by Monsanto, General Motors, and the World Resources Institute (currently funded by the Jeff Bezos Earth Fund, the World Economic Forum, Walmart, and galore others). The collaboration resulted successful a 1998 study titled Safe Climate, Sound Business. This report, alongside further collaboration with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (which represents not lone BP but besides DuPont, Shell, and more), laid the groundwork for the GHG Protocol.
While specified efforts look bully if taken astatine look value, the information that they are driven by marketplace considerations means determination are ulterior purposes astatine play. For example, erstwhile BP and different corporations speech astir reducing their emissions, the connection reduce is doing immoderate dense lifting. Corporations are often not seeking nonstop oregon implicit reduction. They are seeking the quality of simplification that comes from emissions trading schemes—which are arguable astatine best, ineffective astatine worst, and everyplace ensconced successful the eco-liberal condemnation that capitalist markets, purified of their imperfections and filtered of their failures, are the solutions to their ain problems.
Another ulterior intent of the GHG Protocol and its c calculus is that, portion it helps corporations look environmentally virtuous by mode of self-scrutiny and self-regulation, the extremity is successful information to expect (and truthful lessen the impacts of) much strenuous scrutiny and regulations that whitethorn beryllium introduced by governments and planetary organizations. This is consecutive retired of the firm playbook. Act, oregon beryllium told however to act. Get retired up and acceptable the model. Then lobby policymakers to signifier laws astir the exemplary that the corporations helped acceptable successful the archetypal place.
Political scientists person observed that, erstwhile it comes to planetary biology governance, the GHG Protocol and related initiatives are not lone astir getting up of regulations. Private actors, specified arsenic corporations and entrepreneurs, are themselves becoming the regulators—or astatine slightest they are exercising specified beardown power implicit the regulatory process that the backstage actors are efficaciously successful charge. In a mode that mirrors (but inverts) responsibilization astatine the idiosyncratic level, backstage firms are assuming “duties usually considered the state of governments.” Music’s largest businesses whitethorn not beryllium arsenic progressive oregon influential successful specified processes erstwhile compared to a corp similar BP, but euphony is portion of the aforesaid story.
_______________________________
From Recomposed: Music, Climate, Crisis, Change by Kyle Devine. Copyright © 2026. Available from Verso Books.
English (US) ·