Peter Frings
4 June 2024

The planet is burning up –  so everyone must play their part in reducing their greenhouse gas emissions.  In October 2023, I formed a group with other members of the Vinyl Record Manufacturers Association (VRMA) to start looking at the carbon footprint of our industry. We were quickly joined by some members of the Vinyl Alliance, the other industry trade association – and today we have published our first report.

For the first time, we have some hard data on the environmental impact of manufacturing vinyl records. The report is just the first step on this journey. These preliminary findings are based on the organisational footprints of only three businesses; and only cover emissions from cradle to the factory gate. But they have been validated against the GHG Protocol by an independent third party, Climate Partner. Future reports will include data from a wider range of businesses, and we will particularly focus on the lifecycle stages beyond the factory gate – distribution – as well as the emissions contributions from labels and brokers.

But already we can identify the most important steps we can take to reduce the carbon impact of a vinyl record. And for record buyers, we can tell them how the climate impact of buying a record compares to other everyday activities.

You can download the full report here – and a few key findings are given below.

What makes up the manufacturing footprint of a record?

The diagram below is based on the organisational footprint of Vinyl Factory Manufacturing Ltd, 2022-2023. This is a ‘cradle-to-gate’ footprint and does not include emissions from distribution, use or disposal, or the emissions from non-manufacturing companies such as labels or brokers.

Five significant steps to reduce the carbon footprint of a vinyl record

1: Eliminate air freight

If a label or artist presses at a single location, then ships records to global markets by air freight, these shipping emissions will dwarf anything else you might do to reduce the carbon footprint of your release.

2: Switch to a new ‘bio-attributed’ PVC compound

Depending on the verified product footprint, this could cut the footprint of your record by around 44%.

3: Press on 140g

Heavier weights and splatter can increase the footprint of a record by between 14% and 26%.

4: Keep packaging simple

Making a jacket a gatefold (on a single record) adds around 10 to 15% to the typical footprint of a record compared to a simple 3mm spine jacket.

5: Switch to zero-carbon energy

All companies in the supply chain should switch to electricity from renewable sources. Pressing plants often have gas boilers, and replacing these with electric or hydrogen boilers represents a huge challenge, but one that has to be grasped.

So how bad are vinyl records?

We can make reasonable estimates about best and worst case scenarios across the full lifecycle of a vinyl record.

A low-run record, pressed on a ‘bio-attributed’ PVC, picked up by a band from its local pressing plant and only distributed at gigs in their local region, might have a lifecycle carbon footprint of between 0.7 to 1.0 kg CO2e.

At the other end of the scale: a major label release by a global artist, if pressed on conventional PVC, at a heavier weight, if shipped by airfreight around the world, and if it has extensive bespoke packaging… that could all add perhaps another 4kg CO2e. We don’t yet know what the overheads of the label itself would add to that. The final ‘worst case’ carbon footprint might be 5 to 6 kg CO2e per record.

So if the full lifecycle impact of buying a vinyl record is between 0.7 and 6 kg CO2e. How does that compare to other everyday activities? The diagram below gives some comparisons taken from Mike Berners-Lee’s research.

These comparisons are not intended to absolve the vinyl record industry from its responsibility to take all possible steps to reduce the environmental impact of how we operate – far from it.

But from the point of view of an individual record buyers, how bad are vinyl records? Not so bad. If we are serious about reducing our personal carbon footprint… then lets start with stopping flying, ditching the car for public transport or bikes, using renewable energy in our homes, and stopping eating meat.