Charting The Last 12 Months Of The Music Climate Pact As We Celebrate Earth Day
Music Climate Pact Project Manager, Roxy Erickson, looks back at a year of progress and change
Earth Day 2025 feels an appropriate moment to look back on the past 12 months of the Music Climate Pact.
For those of you not yet familiar with the Music Climate Pact, you can read about the big Commitments our Signatories have made here, and we have just launched a resource that explains how any record company can get started on their journey towards becoming a sustainable business here.
Ultimately our goal is one of harnessing the power of the music industry to inspire and create transformational action on the climate crisis throughout our audience and to enable sustainable ways of making, distributing, sharing and enjoying the music we all love.
A big ambition for sure, one that requires a huge amount of bravery, creativity and perseverance as we achieve meaningful progress along the way. However, one thing that has been made clear to me in the last year is the great willingness and commitment from our Signatories and Supporters to give time and resources to aligning as a Pact. We have had Signatory and Supporter staff rolling up their sleeves to do the collaborative work and figure out the route that can lead us to becoming a sustainable industry. There is so much already being done across the music community, and through the efforts of the Pact, we can galvanise further and faster action as we look to take ever-bigger strides forward together.
The Pact came about in the wake of COP26, initiated by AIM, the not-for-profit organisation representing and supporting the UK’s independent music community, and UK record labels association, the BPI – together, they represent and act for the diverse breadth of the UK’s recorded music sector. Record companies of all sizes, ranging from smaller independent labels to world-leading global businesses joined as founder signatories, namely Anjunabeats, Beggars Group, BMG, Brownswood Recordings, Full Time Hobby, Inside Recordings, !K7 Music, Ninja Tune, Partisan Records, Secretly Group, Sony Music Group, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, and Warp. Also coming on board as official Supporters alongside AIM and the BPI, were the American Association of Independent Music (A2IM), Earth/Percent, Featured Artist Coalition (FAC), International Federation of Phonographic Industry (IFPI), IMPALA, Julie’s Bicycle, Key Production Group, Merlin, Murmur, Music Declares Emergency, and Worldwide Independent Network.
So the Pact is not only global in its scope, it is supported by much of the UK and world’s recorded music and by influential environmental organisations. The full list of Signatories and Supporters can be found here.
In line with UN Environment Programme guidelines, the Pact’s Signatories and Supporters have committed to:
Take individual and collective action to measure and reduce greenhouse gas emissions;
Set science-based targets or join the Race to Zero programme;
Work to establish carbon measurement methodologies, tools and frameworks backed by climate science;
Work in partnership with shared suppliers and digital streaming platforms (DSPs) to obtain data and drive emission reduction projects in a collaborative fashion;
Support artists in speaking up on climate issues;
And communicate openly with fans about the impacts of the music industry.
Having been set in motion in 2021, the next phase of the Pact, announced on Earth Day last year, was my appointment as Project Manager, facilitated by the partnership between AIM and Murmur – a new strategic climate fund uniting the music and visual arts industries to address climate change.
Over the past 12 months, I have worked closely with AIM, the BPI and with the Pact’s Signatories and Supporters to co-ordinate communication, support progress, and prioritise the work needed. We know there is a need for urgency, and share in the frustration when progress is slower than we would like, which is why we prioritised getting straight to work on three key work streams. However, given the task ahead and the importance of getting it right. we are balancing acting fast with acting meaningfully.
There has been a lot of important foundational work that we can look back on these past 12 months:
With stakeholders AIM, the BPI, Earth/Percent and Murmur, we developed a 12-18 month strategy which included:
Prioritising substantive action;
Understanding the Pact journey so far;
Work to develop a long-term framework and governance structure;
And we are currently strategising for the next 12 months.
Stakeholder surveys were organised to identify:
Short-term priorities to get us straight to work;
What has been delivered collectively against Commitments since the Pact’s inception;
And any necessary MCP governance framework along with mid-to-long-term strategies.
Setting up of working groups, chaired by our Signatories & Supporters, to lead on 3 key priorities:
Climate literacy: Training for all label staff (launch by end of 2025);
Digital: DSP collaboration to ensure emission reduction & nature restoration;
Vinyl: Addressing industry knowledge and data gaps within the supply chain.
External communications and industry engagement, which included:
A website refresh and the launch of ‘Getting Started’ resources;
Industry events and representation – panel attendance incl. Beyond The Music (Manchester), Expedition One (Liverpool), and the forthcoming Earthfest (London);
Stakeholder engagement, including with IMPALA’s Sustainability Task Force, LIVEGreen, and The BRIT Awards sustainability initiatives.
The formidable effort of ‘getting the collective ball rolling’ has now taken place, and I look at 2025 and 2026 optimistically, with the Pact creating further positive climate action together. The music industry is such an important player in the fight for climate action. We are so lucky that our hard graft means creating exciting transitions internally, communicating openly to music fans and supporting the powerful voices of our artists. This is such exciting work to be a part of and to feel proud about, and I invite you all to follow our work and consider how you can implement similar transformational change within your own organisations aimed at a more sustainable future.
Together, we have the power to lead and inspire wherever someone hears our music. Where scientists can give us the important data and deadlines, music can speak that truth directly to the hearts of so many. For this reason, it’s so important that we make the most of the Music Climate Pact in meaningfully engaging with our stakeholders and by providing a practical pathway for the global music sector to embrace change and a future that sustains all.
I invite you to be a part of this journey, and to learn more about The Music Climate Pact: https://www.musicclimatepact.com/.
Roxy Erickson
Music Climate Pact