CDs and greenhouse gases - another update

In case you're interested, I just got another response from another carbon offsetter regarding the amount of greenhouse gases that are emitted by the creation of an indie band CD.

This is from Canadian company Offsetters:

"Sorry for the delay in reply. The GHG emissions from releasing an album at this scale will be insignificant. Here is what I found out: If you were an independent artist/record producer in the US each $1,000 (USD) of your sales would generate 0.212 Tonnes CO2e. So if you sell 100 copies at 18 USD your total emissions would be less than 0.4 tonnes CO2e. About 40% of the emissions will be from power generation and supply which is less GHG intensive in Canada.

This is the reference I used:
Sector #711500: Independent artists, writers, and performers
Economic Activity: $ 1 Thousand Dollars
Model: US 1997 Industry Benchmark
Carnegie Mellon University Green Design Institute. (2007)
Economic Input-Output Life Cycle Assessment (EIO-LCA) model [Internet], Available from: http://www.eiolca.net/>"


The consensus so far seems to be for us, less than one tonne will be generated.


cn

More news on the death of the CD

Wired magazine is blogging about news reported in the Wall Street Journal today about the rapidly sinking ship known as H.M.C.S. Compact Disc.

Sales in the first quarter of 2007 are 20% lower than this time last year. This is on top of an already-sad slide for the CD over the past number of years.

More food for thought among those of us indies who are wondering how the hell you put out an album in 2007.

(The WSJ article is here.)

cn

Carbon Schmarbon

Since we're on the subject of carbon offsetting, here's a TV commercial produced by the Competitive Enterprise Institute that's currently running in the US:



Whew, what a relief! I had a feeling all those actual scientists were wrong and that sci-fi writer Michael Crichton was right. Now I can stop riding my bike to work like a sucker.

CDs (or albums) and greenhouse gases - update

In an earlier post, I was wondering out loud how much greenhouse gas is created when an album like Caffeine Sunday's is being created.

I have some more info from a couple of the carbon offsetters I contacted, one by email, one by phone.

Bottom line - for the scale and scope of what we're going to do, the cost of offsetting the CO2 emissions is so tiny it's basically a no-brainer.

In case you're interested, here are the detailed responses from the two companies who responded. First, NativeEnergy, the U.S. (Native American, actually) company that did all of the carbon offsetting for Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth book, film, DVD and personal travel:

(Notes from the phone conversation) Native Energy's rule-of-thumb is five lbs of CO2 generated per disc. This includes duplication of the CD at a Cinram-type place and transportation to and from the manufacturing plant. Additional consideration - calculate energy use in the studio (power and gas) during the recording, mixing and mastering of the CD. Additional consideration - any additional freight to ship CDs to outlets. Output is reduced 1.5 lbs per disc if you use 100% recycled cardboard boxes instead of plastic jewel cases for CD (but cardboard is more expensive because of the labour required to insert the discs, as opposed to the insertion process used for jewel cases). For us, 100 CDs based on their rough estimate is 5-10 tons, resulting in $60-120 in offsets. (Keep in mind we are not using a duplicator, etc, so our costs will be much lower than their standard rule of 5 lbs/disc - probably less than half the cost). Other environmental considerations: try printing liner notes on recycled paper, and try using soy-based ink. An Inconvenient Truth DVD packaging used "PLA" - a corn-based plastic for the shrinkwrap (not petroleum-based). Leaving shrinkwrap off at our scale of production doesn't make a difference in terms of CO2, but would send a message that "throwing stuff out is bad", but if we wanted to use shrinkwrap the PLA stuff is better than oil-based plastic. If we used them, they would send us a seal logo to include on the back of the disc saying "This disc is carbon neutral" or whatever, the same as on the back of AIT. Native Energy is working with Warner right now on offsetting several new projects, and offset Coldplay's last album as well as AIT DVD, book and all of Al Gore's travel.

Second, Canadian company Cleanairpass, which is owned by reknewco:

(Via email) Thank you for sending over that information. At an economic level of $500, the greenhouse gases produced are pretty minimal, less then a tonne. That includes output from many economic activities associated with the sound recording industry such as: Power generation and supply, Sound recording industries, Truck transportation, Waste management and remediation services, Air transportation, Paper and paperboard mills, Oil and gas extraction, Wholesale trade, Couriers and messengers, State and local government electric utilities, Pipeline transportation, Petroleum refineries, Coal mining, Iron and steel mills, Other basic organic chemical manufacturing, Other economic activities get included as more money is put into the production. At $500, the greenhouse gas output from many other industries is so minimal that it doesn’t get included in the calculation. For example, if we double the economic level to $1,000, the greenhouse gases produced still remains under 1 tonne, but more activities are included: Plastics material and resin manufacturing, Real estate, Scenic and sightseeing transportation and support activities for transportation, Grain farming, Natural gas distribution, Rail transportation, Industrial gas manufacturing, Cattle ranching and farming, Warehousing and storage, Nitrogenous fertilizer manufacturing, Water, sewage and other systems. At some point down the road, all of these activities are tracked to provide support to the sound recording industry. At infinite level of economic level, hundreds more of these economic activities are included in the calculation of greenhouse gas emissions. At your economic level, it can be offset by 1 tonne and $10. I am assuming your budget for this was higher and recommend you use your entire budget you set aside for this. You can’t go wrong here. When reknewco ltd. (parent company of cleanairpass™) offset their own contribution to greenhouse gas emissions, we offset 100 tonnes when our contribution was less then 1/5 of that. Hope this help you, if you have any questions, please let me know how I can help. We hope to be able to help you in your efforts to become carbon neutral. Remember that we are able to offset tours and shows as well including emissions from the facility, travel, etc.

In addition to the carbon offsetting thing, we are looking at other considerations in making the new album that will help reduce its impact on the environment. It all makes common sense, it's not that difficult to do, and it won't cost a lot more than what we are intending to spend in creating this album.

As I find out more details, I'll post them here too.


cn