LISTENING to music via streaming services or downloads probably seems much more environmentally friendly than filling your home with vinyl records and plastic CD cases.
However, a new study by Scottish and Norwegian researchers is challenging the concept that technology has “dematerialised” music - and their findings suggest our new ways of listening are not so green afterall.
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While overall plastics use in the music industry has fallen dramatically since the heyday of vinyl LPs and CDs, streaming music from internet-connected devices has resulted in “significantly higher carbon emissions than at any previous point in history”, according to the research.Simultaneously, while the carbon emissions costs of recorded music have soared, the price of listening has hit an all-time low.
Researchers at the universities of Glasgow and Oslo found that in 1977 - 'peak LP' year -- the recording industry used 58 million kilograms of plastic in America alone.
Eleven years later in 1988, at the peak of tape cassette sales, the industry used 56 million kilograms of plastic. In 2000 - peak CD - the industry used 61 million kilograms.
When downloading and streaming took over, the amount of plastics used by the US recording industry dropped dramatically, down to just eight million kilograms by 2016.
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However, the researchers found that storing and processing music online uses a “tremendous” amount of resources and energy, with major impacts for the environment.
To demonstrate, they translated the production of plastics for vinyl records, cassettes and CDs, and the generation of electricity for storing and transmitting digital audio files, into kilograms of so-called greenhouse gas equivalents, or “GHGs”.
By 2016 these were over 350 million kilograms in the US alone, having more than doubled from 140 million kilograms at 'peak vinyl' in 1977 - the year 'Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols' debuted at number one on the UK album charts and NASA’s unmanned probe Voyager 2 was launched.
On this analysis, the little-mourned music cassette seems to have been the most environmentally friendly medium, generating just 136 million kilograms of GHGs at its peak in 1988.
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CD use generated 157 million kilograms of GHGs at the medium’s peak at the turn of the millennium in 2000.
Dr Kyle Devine, of the University of Oslo, who led the research on the environmental cost of recording formats, said: “From a plastic pollution perspective, the good news is that overall plastic production in the recording industry has diminished since the heyday of vinyl.
“These figures seem to confirm the widespread notion that music digitalised is music dematerialised.
“The figures may even suggest that the rises of downloading and streaming are making music more environmentally friendly.
“But a very different picture emerges when we think about the energy used to power online music listening. Storing and processing music online uses a tremendous amount of resources and energy - which has a high impact on the environment.
“From a carbon emissions perspective, the transition towards streaming recorded music from internet-connected devices has resulted in significantly higher carbon emissions than at any previous point in the history of music.”
The research collaboration, called The Cost of Music, shows how the price consumers have been willing to pay for recorded music has fallen as dramatically as its environmental costs have risen.
After adjusting for inflation, the research showed that a vinyl album in 1977 cost the equivalent of £21.94 in today's prices, a cassette tape £12.80 in 1988, and a CD the equivalent of £16.59 in 2000.
The advent of streaming now means for just £7.68 - or just over one per cent of an average weekly salary - consumers now have unlimited access to almost all of the recorded music ever released via platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, and Amazon.
This compares to roughly 4.83% of an average weekly salary to buy a lone LP in 1977.
Dr Matt Brennan, reader in popular music at the University of Glasgow said: “The point of this research is not to tell consumers that they should not listen to music, but to gain an appreciation of the changing costs involved in our music consumption behaviour.
“We hope the findings might encourage change toward more sustainable consumption choices and services that remunerate music creators while mitigating environmental impact.”
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