Sustainability and Inclusion: How SDGs may be implemented in the Music Industry

Abstract

The awareness that has been promoted in recent years is that the environment is a good of the world and therefore it should be safeguarded to maintain its health with maneuvers spanning from local to global change with short and long-term goals of sustainability. In today’s world music is truly pervasive and has incredible power to bring together huge parts of the population and induce change while the topic of sustainability is essential to take into account for what regards all industries now more than ever. Hence, what is the future of the music industry, can sustainability redirect competitive advantage in a field that is highly saturated by firms and artists and how are not only music companies but also audiences active agents of this change?

Although academic literature for what regards a sustainable music industry is not developed much, the research backing the paper consists of peer-reviewed journals of some academics that are passionate about the topic and have therefore examined the causes of greenhouse gas emissions both in the recorded and live music industry which compose the two main segments that make up the musical market. On top of this, the subject matter will be enriched with relevant data brought about by magazines and online sources that tend to be more up to date and promote a livelier examination of the topic. The subject matter for the thesis came about at a moment in which majority of the youth is concerned with the future of the planet and therefore sustainability and a direct connection between this element and such an extensive part of one’s life, namely music, has the power of sparking and directing change. Hence, the thesis is aimed at exploring the current state of the music industry and its potential for green growth under societal and managerial viewpoints. This will be carried out through a case study delving into the realm of the Warner Music Group by interviewing its Supply Chain Senior Vice President. This case will be crucial in understanding the way sustainability has been making its way into becoming a core principle of the music industry.

The paper will initially delve into a description of the music industry with a brief introduction of the music industry environment which will then evolve into the changes brought about by the pandemic. Indeed, after identifying the principal area of interest for the research, areas of concern will be identified with the goal of assessing what the problem in the industry is, what its impact looks like and therefore analyze the knowledge gap underlying the music industry and sustainability. Correspondingly, it will be brought to light that, though the music industry was not directly involved in making change in the initial layout that the United Nations created, papers claiming that the field must take action were developed and published in order to communicate the ability and necessity of the industry to play a pivotal role in attaining them. Succeeding the review of the two main variables of this thesis, namely the music industry and the sustainable goals, the research problem will pivot on the search for the interaction between them and their potential rise of solutions in the field.