Like many artists and music fans, we’re concerned about the impacts of the climate emergency. The landscape we work in is changing rapidly. According to the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), we have until 2030 to avoid substantial climate and ecosystem breakdown.
Arts industries – as the bedrock of culture – can play a vital role in encouraging and supporting widespread action on the climate agenda. Towards this end, we’re taking steps to reduce our environmental impact in line with the latest climate science and holding ourselves to account by publishing our progress.
You can find more information below, but also in our annual greenhouse gas inventory report. We’re appreciative of any feedback on how we can improve even more, or any ideas you think we might have missed. Please get in touch by emailing [email protected]
our commitment to sustainability
As members of the UN Race to Zero campaign, we have joined the world’s largest coalition of non-state actors taking immediate action to halve global emissions by 2030. We publicly commit to:
we’ll publish an annual report that summarises our emissions profile, to help continuously improve our understanding of the impact that we have (see below).
we’ll halve our emissions (scope 1, 2 & 3) by 2030, against a 2019 baseline with an ambition to achieve net zero by 2050.
for emissions that we cannot yet avoid, we’ll adopt a price per tonne based on the recommendation of our partner organisation, Murmur.
with the funds from step 3, we’ll work with Murmur to support initiatives for transformational action to address climate change.
measuring emissions
Our headline carbon emissions for UK-based and US-based operations combined are as follows:
- 2019 – Absolute carbon emissions: 6,112 tonnes/CO2e
- Relative carbon intensity: 3.43 Kg/CO2e per unit produced
- 2020 – Absolute carbon emissions: 4,471 tonnes/CO2e
- Relative carbon intensity: 3.12 Kg/CO2e per unit produced)
- 2021 – Absolute carbon emissions: 6,485 tonnes/CO2e
- Relative carbon intensity: 3.32 Kg/CO2e per unit produced)
- 2022 – Absolute carbon emissions: 10,049 tonnes/CO2e
- Relative carbon intensity: 3.63 Kg/CO2e per unit produced
- 2023 – Absolute carbon emissions: 10.947 tonnes/CO2e
- Relative carbon intensity: 3.37 Kg/CO2e per unit produced
- 2024 – Absolute carbon emissions: 6,142 tonnes/CO2e
- Relative carbon intensity: 2.35 Kg/CO2e per unit produced
In 2024, our absolute global emissions reduced by 4805 Tonnes/CO2e (-44%) from the previous year. This represents a slight increase of 29.8 Tonnes CO2e (0.48%) from out baseline year. 97.3% of our emissions are in Scope 3.
As an indicator of how our carbon emissions relate to our business growth the Kg/Unit figure has continued to reduce from 3.37Kg CO2e/ unit to 2.35 Kg CO2e / unit. This represents a reduction of 31.5% in the carbon intensity of our operations since our baseline year (2019).
our actions
• We’ve installed 45 solar PV panels at our head office, which produce a significant quantity of our energy needs, reducing our reliance on energy from the grid
• We have retrofitted our head office with the installation of energy efficient LED lighting and motion sensors throughout, as well as upgraded heating systems
• We’ve switched all server systems to cloud-based providers, which has significantly reduced IT-related energy demand. Our server providers are all ‘carbon neutral’
•Proactive engagement with suppliers to ensure the development of and transition to sustainable formats- the focus on this is to take a science-based approach to quantifying the opportunities for decarbonization to enable sustainability to be incorporated into strategic procurement.
• Wherever possible (supply permitting) vinyl releases contain preconsumer recycled PVC granulate, which reduces our reliance on virgin raw materials
• Sleeves are made from sustainably sourced (FSC) or recycled card, with plastic jewel case compact discs now largely discontinued
• A vast majority of releases are pressed on 140 gram vinyl, instead of 180 gram. This lighter-weight vinyl has a proportionally smaller environmental footprint, without any loss in audio quality
• Overstocks and faulty items (both vinyl and CDs) are sent to a specialist facility for material separation and recycling
• wherever possible we prioritise road and sea freight over air freight however recent challenges in the global vinyl supply chains have impacted upon our ability to do this.
• We’re working with our distribution partners to discuss where we can achieve efficiencies and collect more granular data to measure the impact of changes in a more accurate manner
• We encourage our staff to minimise flying and to take the train whenever possible
industry collaboration
Coordinated action is absolutely essential in order to bring about systemic change in how we make and distribute music. We’re supporting the whole industry to pull in the same direction on climate topics by elevating conversations between industry groups and providing the resources needed to undertake the same work at the same time. We’re always on the lookout for productive collaborations, and are currently active members of the following groups:
IMPALA Sustainability Taskforce
founding member and contributor to IMPALA’s Carbon Calculator
Association of Independent Music (AIM)
Climate Action Group
Music Climate Pact
founding signatory
BPI Sustainability Working Group
Music Industry Climate Collective
Vinyl Alliance Sustainability steering group
In addition, we give time and resources to support the development of sustainability conversations across the industry via Murmur.
pricing emissions & supporting transformative action
At Beggars we believe that simply compensating for our emissions via carbon offsets isn’t the most effective way to fund transformative action- we have been at the forefront of developing a more impactful and effective model through Murmur where arts and music companies contribute meaningfully to global climate targets through funding external action. One where we can leverage the unique influencing power of artists and arts organisations to accelerate action on climate, by tackling barriers to action in the arts industries.
Our continued support for Murmur in 2024 saw the organisation go from strength to strength, launching in May, Murmur has developed its funding to deliver against its three core goals:
- Changing the Industry– Unifying the arts to create more sustainable industries
- Changing the conversation– Empower artists to use their voices to ignite change
- Changing the world- Mobilising the arts to support wider transformative climate action
All three are essential elements of Murmur’s theory of change, but “Change the conversation” – empowering artists to use their voices to ignite change – is at the core of the organisations work and what makes Murmur unique. Funding in 2024 was used to establish the Murmur Artist Support programme as the central core to the change the conversation goal.
Under Change the Industry Murmur funded the establishment of the Music Climate Pact and Vinyl Alliance Sustainable Supplier Programme- this year we have used data from that programme to improve our impacts associated with record manufacturing.
Beggars contribution to Murmur is calculated by the setting an internal carbon price of £50 / tonne against Beggars UK residual emissions. No compensatory claims are made in relation to Beggars contribution to Murmur the carbon price is simple a mechanism for quantifying the contribution to Murmur and is aligned to emerging best practice on carbon pricing- Beggars did not receive any compensatory mechanisms (i.e. carbon offsets) associated with this contribution, nor did we incorporate any emissions reductions from projects funded by Murmur into our calculations of our GHG emissions.