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By Richard Howells and Sin To
Did you know that August 12th was National Vinyl Record Day? It seems that every music store, festivals and concerts you go to, there are bands on stage who will bring along their merchandising materials like CDs, T-Shirts and records. Yes, you read correctly, vinyl records!
Vinyl is back and is enjoying a great popularity despite the offer of streaming music. After several decades of sales decline, due to the CD boom in the 80’s, vinyl is now very trendy, and major labels have started to produce vinyl records again. Vinyl sales grew by double digits in 2018, with almost 10 million records taking a spin on the turntable.
The sustainability record of vinyl and PVC
Worldwide, there is only a handful of companies producing vinyl records, and most of them have been in the industry for decades. In this time, the production process of vinyl records hasn’t changed much.
To produce a vinyl record requires polyvinyl chloride (PVC), and the base raw materials are salt and oil. The production process itself is not particularly eco-friendly as it involves toxic acids and consumes a lot of energy for steaming and cooling.
Recycling of PVC is also an issue, as it takes at least a hundred years until it is totally decomposed.
Setting the record straight
There are lot of parties involved in the production process of vinyl records: artists, record labels, press plants, distributors, record stores and consumers. Consumers are demanding more sustainable products, and artists are always the lead vocalists when it comes to saving the planet. So how can the manufacturers and distributors, get on the same wavelength?
Sustainable Design – How can we design products with more sustainable materials, but get the vinyl look, feel and sound? Green Vinyl Records, a collaboration project of eight Dutch companies, developed an environmentally friendly alternative production process for vinyl records. The company replaces the plastics of which vinyl’s are made with eco-friendly materials and still maintaining the familiar vinyl feeling which is key in that process. By using this process, they also claimed to achieve an energy savings of over 60%, a faster manufacturing process and less waste.
Sustainable manufacturing – how can we reduce waste and use more environmentally friendly processes in manufacturing? Canadian based Viral Technologies invested in a new production process technology to decrease the waste in record production. It is using sensors to track the process from start to end like temperature control, using modern user-friendly interfaces and has advanced workflow. There are also press plants like Deepgrooves from the Netherlands that is trying out a new eco-friendly press process. They are using sustainable electricity and a granular, made of calcium base, to press the records. Furthermore the company uses a circular production process so that they can re-use “organic garbage“ as biomass for the production of electricity.
Sustainable Logistics - In a world which is globally connected, choosing local partners could reduce our CO2 emissions by optimizing the supply chain: shorter shipping distances, less packaging, better end-to-end production and distribution.
At SAP, we’re seizing this opportunity ourselves. We’re also helping our customers do the same with supply chain and logistics software that helps companies run better. For more information, visit SAP Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).
To learn more on how to drive sustainable supply chain processes, download the IDC report “Leveraging your intelligent digital supply chain.”
