The (Un)Sustainable Side of the Music Industry
By: Mehul Kamran
Tags: Data Center, Emissions, Music, Sustainability, Climate Action

By Mehul Kamran

When thinking of the way we listen to music, gone are the days that we associate our music with vinyl records and tapes. The world has ushered in a new era of music, with streaming services such as Spotify, Apple Music, and Tidal providing cheap, accessible music to millions worldwide. Spotify boasts over 217 million monthly active users and Apple Music has over 60 million.

When we think about the negative environmental consequences of the music industry, our minds jump to images of music festivals and concerts with thousands of people with the potential for waste. Reaching such a conclusion is valid — Coachella itself generated 107 tons of waste per day in 2017, of which only 20 percent was recycled. That is a staggering figure for only one music festival, considering that it adds up to about 428 tons of solid waste for both weekends together.

The environmental detriment of concerts and music festivals is no secret. In fact, Coldplay recently pledged not to tour until performing was not harmful for the environment. Despite the effects of live performances, music’s main environmental concerns lay much closer to home.

If the festivals aren’t the problem, what is?

It appears that sitting back and streaming our favorite songs has done more harm to our environment than we would think.

The act of streaming music is essentially a transmission of data. Even though their apps do not take up much data on the devices of the consumer, music streaming companies need to invest in data centers to store and transmit their data. And with hundreds of millions of users, that’s a lot of data that needs to be stored and processed. Data Centers generate a great deal of heat, so in addition to the copious amounts of electricity used by computer servers, these centers need constant cooling. With enough data to support millions of tracks and hundreds of millions of users, the environmental cost of electricity and cooling adds up.

In fact, a study titled The Cost of Music by Dr. Matt Brennan from the University of Glasgow calculated just how much emissions are released by music streaming. Measured in Greenhouse Gas Equivalents (GHGs), he found that:

“the generation of GHGs by storing and transmitting digital files for those listening to music online is estimated to be between 200 million kilograms and over 350 million kilograms in the US alone”.

This estimate is from 2016 and localized to the United States. If we add the growth of music streaming 3 years later and consider the data these companies use outside of the U.S. as well, streaming emits at a much higher scale than previously measured.

Was the vinyl era not worse?

Despite the heavy emissions linked to the streaming of music, it is widely assumed that we have ushered in a more sustainable era of music than the previous generation who relied on plastic-based vinyl records as their primary source of recorded music. However, recent research has found that this is not the case. Our circular predecessors had much less of an impact as the streaming services we frequent. In the peak year of vinyl popularity, 1977, the industry used 58 million kilograms of plastic in the United States, over four times less than the amount that streaming services have used per year.

Are these companies doing anything about it?

Fortunately, with more coverage, streaming services have made a lot of headway towards a carbon-neutral business model. Spotify has released its own annual sustainability report since 2017, highlighting the ways the company has moved towards a greener business plan.

The company’s biggest move towards sustainability has been beginning to move its server operations to the Google Cloud Platform. Such a move is a great stride towards sustainability because when a company’s operations migrate onto the cloud, the emissions directly associated with the company become zero. The emissions needed to uphold cloud servers are instead associated with Google. Keeping this in mind, Google has elected to match all energy consumed by its Cloud and data centers with renewable energy, meaning that all energy used by Google’s operations is offset. As a result of this move, Spotify’s last data center is scheduled to close at the end of this calendar year. Soundcloud (which relies on Amazon Web Services), and Apple Music have also made similar moves towards sustainability.

There is still progress to be made. Offsets do not mean that these companies are relying entirely on renewable energy, as they purchase or invest in renewable energy to match their consumption. These companies must still work towards getting none of their power from the grid.

Now, this piece was not meant to vilify streaming services in any way. Neither is this a call to action for users to boycott the apps and definitely not my way of asking Drake to write the next hit song about the unsustainable ways of music streaming. However, it is important for users to know the effects that the companies they are soliciting are having on the environment. With more awareness, companies have more of an incentive to partake in more sustainable business practices, be held accountable for their actions, and ultimately allow for the music industry to be as carbon neutral as possible.