Turning her climate action up to eleven, the global music sensation Billie Eilish has released a sustainability plan for her forthcoming album, Hit Me Hard and Soft with the ultimate aim of minimising her environmental impact.
Released through Universal Music Group, the album will be released in eight variants of vinyl through her website as well as major retailers including Target, Amazon, and Walmart, on 17 May and all with the same track-listing.
Addressing music industry practices previously labelled by Billie as enormously ‘wasteful’, the artist is limiting the number of variants produced and released. In an interview with Billboard, Billie recently took a stab at artists releasing up to 40 variants of the same album in a bid to skew the purchasing figures and top the sales charts.
While the artist’s decision to release eight variants of the same album has been scrutinised, Billie has set out intentions to keep the environmental impact to a minimum. The standard black variant is made from 100% recycled black vinyl while the remaining 7 coloured variants will be made from Eco-Mix or BioVinyl.
Eco-Mix is created using 100% recycled compound made of leftovers from any colour which cannot otherwise be used. These pieces are recycled and reused for production of future discs. Meanwhile, BioVinyl helps reduce carbon emissions by 90% vs. virgin vinyl by using non-fossil fuel materials such as cooking oil or industrial waste gasses while maintaining the same audio and optical quality as conventional vinyl.
Further to this, all vinyl packaging will be made using FSC certified recycled paper or board made 100% from post-consumer waste and recycled pre-consumer fibres. The ink used is raw plant-based and water-based dispersion varnish, while in place of shrink wrap, the sleeves will be produced from 100% recycled and reusable material.
For the nostalgia-heads out there, cassette shells will be made from recycled shell pieces ground down and reused to make new cassette shells, while CD packaging will be made from softpaks with zero plastic jewel boxes.
Within the plan, Billie is even address sustainability across her official merchandise. All clothing is developed using residual deadstock from prior productions, organic or recycled polyester or cotton, non-toxic dye inputs, and feature intentional design processes for circularity.
The singer-songwriter has been a long-time advocate for climate change action and sustainable practices and has been a force for positive change among her fanbase as well as the wider music industry. Alongside her mother, Maggie Baird, an activist and founder of the plant-based food platform, Support + Feed, the pair have been hugely influential in changes seen across Universal Music Group’s approach to sustainability.
“I will happily say that Universal has come a long way,” Maggie told Billboard recently. “We had three Universal Music Group Sustainability Summits last year; one in London, one in LA, and one in New York with just UMG employees talking about all the various issues.”
It’s a gear change for the mother-daughter duo who recall at one point being the only ones banging the drum for sustainability in the board room.
“I used to be like, ‘why are we the ones doing this?’ Like, why is a 15-year-old girl and her mom talking about this?” Maggie recalled. “But gradually they have started to, which I think is really encouraging.”
In November last year, Universal Music Group had its greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets formally approved by the Science Based Targets initiative, marking a first for a standalone major music company and one with a major presence in the licensed merchandise space.
Among UMG’s ambitions are firm commitments to reduce its absolute scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions by 58% by 2032 and reduce its scope 3 emissions by 65% within the same timeframe.
