Not So Fast, Ms. Eilish

“It’s so wasteful, and it’s irritating to me that we’re still at a point where you care that much about your numbers and you care that much about making money — and it’s all your favorite artists doing that shit.”

That quote comes from a recent interview Billboard magazine did with Billie Eilish. The “wasteful” she referenced is the production of vinyl records. Specifically, those produced by artists who release multiple variants of their albums. We’ll set aside the fact that Eilish’s album Happier Than Ever gave buyers multiple colors to choose from. Let’s focus instead on the argument itself. I am pretty sure everyone agrees that sustainability is a good thing. Put simply, “sustainability” means we as a society meet the needs of today without compromising future generations’ ability to do the same. This considers environmental and economic factors. Basically, wastefulness is bad, and being mindful of that and mitigating it is good.

With that in mind, is Eilish’s stance valid? Forget multiple versions of a record. At its core, we are talking about the production of the record itself, a format that is enjoying a resurgence in today’s world of streaming services. New pressing plants are being built to meet demand, and with each new plant, the argument asserts, comes more strain on the environment – future generations be damned.

Not so fast.

Let’s instead look at some numbers. 

At first glance, it doesn’t look good for vinyl records. A study by Keele University concluded that each vinyl record pressed produces a carbon footprint of 0.5kg of CO2. That’s not including the additional effects of packaging and its production. Nor does it add in the transportation cost of transporting those records around the world in ships, planes, trucks, and trains. Take all that into account, and it easily adds another 0.5kg to the initial estimate, bringing it up to 1kg of CO2 per record.

How many vinyl records were sold in 2023? According to Billboard, it was upwards of 50 million. I’m notoriously horrendous when it comes to math, so I turned to ChatGPT for the numbers. For 50 million records, it amounts to 50,000 tonnes of CO2 (1 tonne = 1,000 kg). That’s roughly the equivalent of the annual CO2 emissions from electricity in 9,091 homes. It takes 2.38 million trees to offset that amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. 

It sounds dire.

That’s producing the record. We haven’t even looked at the environmental concerns of PVC (polyvinyl chloride). It’s not readily recyclable, and the variety of additives in PVC complicates the recycling process. Discarded PVC ends up in landfills or incinerators (which release toxic dioxins), contributing to long-term environmental pollution.

But we’re not going to look at the recyclability of records. Why? Record buyers don’t throw their records away (at least I hope not, after spending an average of $20-$30 USD on a record). That’s not to say a few records don’t find their way to a landfill, but it’s safe to say most don’t. Buyers want to own their music—for decades in many cases. All we care about today is production costs.

What is the alternative? Greener production efforts, for one. There are companies that approach the production of vinyl records with a focus on sustainability. Let’s not even look at those. Let’s absorb the 1kg of CO2 per record and turn our attention to today’s reigning champ of music consumption—digital streaming. Surely, a bunch of 1s and 0s don’t hurt anyone. A byte of data has to be more environmentally friendly than a kilogram of CO2.

Again – what does the data suggest? 

If I were to stream my favorite Black Sabbath album for one hour, it would produce 55g of CO2. That includes the infrastructure to support it. Things like the data centers that store the music and the network components to transmit it. It also includes the energy consumed by the user’s device. I would only need to listen for 18 hours to equal the production of one vinyl record. The average listener streams about 1,045 hours a year. That’s 57.5kg of CO2 (thanks, ChatGPT!) or… 57 records! How many people around the world stream music? In 2021, 524 million people were subscribed to a music service. That’s 29,972,800 tonnes of CO2 emissions. Now, that’s a carbon footprint Bigfoot would be proud of.

I think I can rest my case here.