Digitalisation Brings Sustainability Challenges
In Finland, record production should be examined from a sustainability perspective, and reliable data on the industry’s environmental impacts should be collected. In music distribution, streaming is one of the sustainability challenges.
In the Finnish music scene, record production is only just beginning its sustainability efforts. Internationally, companies like Sony, Universal, Warner, and 12 other record labels have signed The Music Climate Pact, committing to carbon neutrality by 2050 and halving climate emissions by 2030.
The advocacy organisation for indie record labels, IndieCo, has been active in promoting sustainability. The international umbrella organisation for indie labels, IMPALA, offers its members a sustainability program that includes a commitment, tips for making their operations more sustainable, and advice on offsetting emissions. The package also includes a carbon footprint calculator for recorded music production, produced in collaboration with Julie’s Bicycle.
Critical Sustainability Factors in Record Production:
- Choice and consumption of energy sources used in production
- Logistics of physical products
- Manufacturing processes and raw materials for physical products
- PR activities related to record production (compare to air travel)
- International trade fairs
Streaming as a Sustainability Challenge
Climate and circular economy actions should also be extended to the production and streaming of recordings to cover the entire music industry’s ecological sustainability efforts. The Kestävät tuotantomallit (Sustainable Production Models) project’s workshops for the music and film industry identified that the climate emissions of streaming are more significant than other forms of music consumption. Additionally, it was considered important to expand the perspective from the climate crisis to also address the biodiversity crisis, especially in terms of cultural change.
Music streaming involves several significant sustainability challenges. The current subscription-based pricing model tends to maximise overall music and thus energy consumption.For the individual consumer, it is easy to overlook the fact that every streaming and search consumes energy.
Moreover, the so-called pro rata royalty payment system to rights holders, based on click-based consumption of streaming services, has led to the creation of criminal bot platforms, where rights holders can pay to increase the number of individual works streamed. The so-called bot farm phenomenon has become a significant problem in the entertainment streaming business. It also causes considerable climate emissions, which current calculations cannot account for due to understandable reasons. Currently, a 30-second listening period is sufficient for a stream to be counted for payment, creating excellent operating conditions for bot farms.
To address the sustainability challenges of music streaming, a consumption-based model has been proposed instead of or at least alongside the current subscription-based model. This would lead to reduced energy consumption by streaming platforms and greater transparency from the perspective of rights holders. Additionally, moving away from the click-based royalty payment system would require a full song listen for a stream to be counted for payment. These changes would undermine the business logic of bot farms.
Music streaming also faces significant sustainability challenges due to content oversupply. Over 100,000 new music tracks appear on streaming services daily. Storing billions of individual tracks on servers consumes significant amounts of energy.
An increasing proportion of streaming service content is generated by generative AI, which significantly increases the overall energy consumption of music production. Generative AI-produced content also poses significant responsibility and ethical issues from the perspective of music creators and rights holders.
Music production processes – and in the future, consumption – increasingly involve new technological services, such as AI applications. In the music industry, discussions about AI have so far focused on copyright issues. However, sustainability issues related to AI’s learning have largely been overlooked. AI consumes vast amounts of energy and cooling water, according to a study conducted in Texas.
CASE: Helsinki Record Pressing – Pioneering Work and a Return to Roots
In Finland, new more sustainable operating models in the production of physical recordings are represented by the vinyl record pressing company Helsinki Record Pressing, founded in 2021. The pressing company aims for carbon neutrality in its operations. The company’s core focus is on sustainability and the green transition. Producing vinyl records more sustainably responds to changes in consumption behaviour and offers a more sustainable way to consume music by buying less and less frequently. Physical products, such as vinyl records, influence consumers’ ways of listening to music and reflect more sustainable values. Helsinki Record Pressing has produced over 250,000 vinyl records on demand by spring 2025.
Recommendations for Reducing Digital Footprint
The type and purpose of the device significantly affect the digital footprint. You can reduce your carbon footprint by following these principles:
- Choose smaller devices. Generally, the larger the device, the more energy it consumes. Therefore, participating in a remote meeting or watching a video is usually more efficient on a phone than on a television or laptop.
- Connect correctly. Whenever possible, use your devices on Wi-Fi instead of roaming. 4G consumes about four times more electricity than Wi-Fi.
- Streaming. Streaming consumes energy. You can reduce the load by watching videos in lower quality than HD. You can also download videos or music to your device, which is more ecological than repeated streaming. According to a study by Keele University, streaming music is worthwhile if you listen to a track only a few times. For albums you listen to continuously, it is better to either download them or buy physical copies. Streaming an entire album 27 times consumes more energy than producing a CD.
Get the information, plan carefully and measure the impact
- Get information about the formation of the digital footprint and discuss the topic with subcontractors and service providers.
- Map out where digital impacts occur. What is your goal – reducing the footprint of your digital operations, understanding the footprint of a single project, acquiring new digital devices, or creating a circular economy strategy?
- Explore options for measuring digital impacts. Erjjio offers a free website health check, and the Green Web Foundation’s tool checks service providers’ credentials and tells you if website management is “green or grey.” Wholegrain Digital’s calculator measures the carbon footprint of a website, and Ecometer provides tools for designing and implementing less environmentally impactful pages.
Promote the sustainability transition
- Inspire: Encourage others to change and share your most effective actions for reducing digital impacts. Actively communicate what you are doing.
- Ask: Discuss with technical and digital service providers about their environmental and energy reports and what they are doing to reduce their environmental impacts.
- Encourage: Set an example and switch to using renewable energy. Encourage others to do the same.
Do a digital clean-up
- Efficiency: Design software, websites, applications, digital art, and audience communication to be efficient, fast, and easily accessible. This serves the audience and reduces environmental impacts. Consider these methods: reduce the amount of code transferred to users’ computers, use static content instead of rebuilding pages, minimise the computation needed to render web pages, and improve audio and video codecs.
- Combat digital waste: Check what you store digitally and where. Digital storage consumes energy. Remove unnecessary items, such as unused applications, old emails, and files, and unsubscribe from unwanted email subscriptions. Move the remaining data to the cloud if possible, as cloud data centres are generally more efficient.
- Use a green search engine, such as Ecosia, which turns searches into tree planting, or Ocean Hero, which turns searches into retrieving plastic bottles from the oceans.