Vinyl sales rose 14.2% across all independent US retailers in 2023, according to Luminate, marking the continued growth of a format whose renewed popularity has coincided with the industry's growing focus on sustainability – one that consistently defines vinyl's carbon footprint as problematic.
Now, the Vinyl Record Manufacturers Association (VRMA) and the Vinyl Alliance (VA) have released a study that examines the carbon footprint of the production process and offers recommendations for mitigating it.
“We hope that this report – and a series of subsequent updates – encourages everyone in the vinyl record industry to be radically transparent about the environmental impact of making vinyl records and what steps we can take to reduce that impact,” the report says , adding that the data to support them “are based on a very limited number of companies in the supply chain.” However, he continues, “we have a number of other companies in the process of contributing their carbon footprints and we hope this report will encourage many more businesses in the supply chain to get involved as well.”
The study examines the scope of the vinyl industry one, two and three emissions, which are involved in the entire life of a vinyl record. Accordingly, they include a company's direct emissions. indirect emissions from electricity purchased; and all other indirect emissions in a company's value chain. The study was conducted in accordance with the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol, which standardises, internationally, the way businesses measure, report and manage their greenhouse gas emissions.
According to the report, the 'gate-from-the-factory' footprint of a single vinyl album is around 1.15kg of CO2e, or the equivalent of driving a car for three miles. Fifty percent of these emissions come from the PVC plastic compound used to record the records, another 30% is from energy
factory consumption and 13% of emissions come from print packaging such as jackets, inserts and sleeves. The remaining percentage includes the manufacture of varnishes, cutting tools and stamps and other packaging.
But while vinyl emissions are an oft-cited problem, the report goes a step further by offering five recommendations that vinyl manufacturers can make to reduce carbon emissions from their manufacturing processes.
The first is to eliminate air transport. “If a company or artist taps in one location, then ships records to global markets by air,” the study says, “those emissions from shipping will dwarf anything else you can do to reduce your traffic's carbon footprint.” .
The next recommendation is to switch to a “bio-degradable” PVC compound. A relatively recent invention, “bio-degradable” PVC is made from a waste product created during paper production and uses plant-based raw materials to replace the petroleum with which PVC is normally made. Such use could reduce an album's carbon footprint by about 44%, according to the report.
The report also recommends that manufacturers press lighter vinyl 140 grams versus 180 grams. Heavier weights can increase a record's footprint by between 14% and 26%, as can the use of splatter vinyl, which involves sprinkling different colors onto a background color before the record is pressed. The report also advises manufacturers to keep their packaging simple, noting that a jacket gate on a single tray adds 10% to 15% to the typical footprint of a tray compared to a standard 3mm jacket.
Finally, the report advises all companies in the supply chain to switch to zero-carbon energy. “Compression plants often have gas boilers, and replacing them with electric or hydrogen boilers represents a huge challenge,” the report says, “but one that needs to be understood.”
The inaugural report was drafted by a working group headed by Peter Frings of Stamper Discs in parallel Adam Tesky and Alex Dennison of Vinyl Factory Manufacturing Ltd. Ryan Weizel from A to Z Media. Karen Emanuel and John Service Basic Production; Ian Stanton of the Beggars Group; Kamal Nasseredin of Precision Pressing; Vladimir Visek of GZ Media; Ryan Mitrovic of Vinyl Alliance; Brian Ekus of VRMA? and Reuben Planting of Deep Grooves.
