Decarbonisation in Entertainment: What it Actually Means
Decarbonisation gets used a lot in music, media and entertainment right now. It appears in tour press releases, festival sustainability commitments, broadcaster Net Zero pledges and venue green initiatives. Most of the time it means something vague; a commitment to reduce emissions without a plan for how, or a target without a pathway to reach it.
Decarbonisation in this sector is not complicated in principle: it means systematically reducing greenhouse gas emissions across your operations, but it can be genuinely hard to execute. The emissions profile of a touring operation, a live event or a media production looks nothing like a corporate office, a manufacturing plant or a logistics fleet. And the approaches that get the most public attention are often not the ones that produce the most reduction.
That’s why in this article, we cover:
- What decarbonisation actually means
- Why the entertainment sector's decarbonisation challenge is different
- Where the real emissions are, and where they aren't
- What a credible decarbonisation programme involves
- The mistakes that cost organisations the most
Let’s start with the basics.
What decarbonisation actually means
Decarbonisation is the process of reducing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions from energy use, transport, manufacturing, supply chains and other sources: towards zero. The decarbonisation meaning is specific: it refers to actual reductions in emissions, not the purchasing of offsets to balance them out.
Carbon neutrality can be claimed through offsetting. Decarbonisation cannot. And a Net Zero target is a destination: decarbonisation is the work required to reach it.
The Climate Change Committee's 2024 Progress Report found that the UK is not on track for its legally binding Net Zero target. Emissions have fallen, but not at the rate required. The report is consistent across sectors: ambition is not the problem. Delivery is.
Music, media and entertainment have made significant public commitments on emissions. Whether those commitments are backed by credible decarbonisation plans is a different question, and increasingly the one being asked.
Why the entertainment sector's decarbonisation challenge is different
Most corporate decarbonisation frameworks were built for organisations with stable, predictable energy and transport footprints: a manufacturing plant, a corporate office portfolio, a logistics company with a defined fleet. The tools make sense for those contexts: energy audits, Scope 1 and 2 reduction targets, fleet electrification.
Music, media and live events work differently.
A major touring production moves across multiple countries, draws on dozens of suppliers, generates energy demand that varies enormously between show days and travel days, and involves an audience whose collective transport footprint can account for 77% of total live music emissions in the UK: explored in detail in our work on why fan travel is the music industry's biggest climate opportunity, dwarfing everything within the production's direct control.
A festival is a temporary city, built and dismantled annually, powered largely by diesel generators that sit outside standard utility billing. A broadcaster's emissions are distributed across offices, studios, data centres, location shoots and supply chains that span continents.
The Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre has documented the challenge: the creative industries face sustainability pressures from high-emissions processes, energy-intensive production and complex supply chains that standard frameworks were not built to handle. Generic decarbonisation approaches, applied without understanding the sector's actual emissions structure, produce generic results. They look credible until someone asks what changed.
Where the real emissions are
Most organisations in this sector focus on what they can directly see and control: on-site energy, production equipment, office operations. Those sources are real and reducing them matters. But in most entertainment contexts, they are not where most of the emissions come from.
Research by Hope Solutions alongside MIT, Live Nation, Warner Music Group and Coldplay, covering more than 80,000 live music events across the UK and US in 2023, produced the most detailed picture of this sector's footprint available. Fan travel accounts for 77.2% of UK live music emissions. Power (the source most decarbonisation attention focuses on) accounts for 3.4%. Food and beverage accounts for 7.6%. Air freight 8.1%.
An organisation that decarbonises its stage power entirely, switching from diesel to grid electricity or renewables, addresses 3.4% of its emissions. That reduction is real and should be made. But it cannot be presented as meaningful progress on the sector's actual footprint, and in a context where scrutiny of sustainability claims is increasing, organisations that do present it that way are taking a risk.
On the power question, the challenge is not just source but efficiency. Hope Solutions' research into UK events and diesel use found that the UK event industry uses an estimated 380 million litres of diesel annually, with generators typically running at 10–20% of their capacity: far below the 50–70% efficiency range at which they perform best. A 40% reduction in diesel use, achievable through better load management without any change to fuel type, would save an estimated 450,000 tonnes of CO₂e annually and around £90 million in unnecessary fuel costs. HVO and alternative fuels have a role after efficiency is addressed, not instead of it.
For media and broadcasting, the emissions structure is different again. Data centres, streaming infrastructure, international location shoots and supply chains dominate. Virtual production reduces some location travel but is itself energy-intensive. The decarbonisation priority for a broadcaster is not the same as for a festival operator. Applying the same framework to both produces the same result: a plan that doesn't fit the footprint.
What a credible decarbonisation programme involves
It starts with measurement; not a high-level estimate, but a GHG Protocol-compliant carbon inventory covering Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions that reflects the actual sources of the footprint. Without that, an organisation cannot know where reductions will have the most impact, and cannot demonstrate progress over time.
A credible decarbonisation strategy then addresses the real drivers: which means, in most live music contexts, engaging with how audiences travel. Not telling people what to do, but understanding what transport options exist for key catchment areas, working with venues and local authorities on infrastructure, designing incentive schemes for lower-carbon travel choices, and factoring travel impact into decisions about show locations and touring routing. This is harder and less visible than switching a generator fuel. It is also where most of the available reduction sits. Working with an environmental consultancy that understands this sector determines whether a decarbonisation plan reflects the actual footprint or a more convenient version of it.
Supply chain decarbonisation matters as much as direct operational change. The vendors who supply staging, power, catering infrastructure and logistics are making emissions decisions across every event they service, and those decisions aggregate across the full value chain. Working with those suppliers on decarbonisation value chains scales impact across every event in a supplier's portfolio, not just one.
A decarbonisation plan, distinct from a Net Zero commitment, sets out the specific actions, timelines and accountabilities for achieving year-on-year emissions reductions. Combined with a carbon reduction strategy that prioritises the highest-impact sources first, it is what turns a pledge into a programme. Organisations that want to align their decarbonisation strategy with scientific consensus should look at Science Based Targets. And reporting progress through mechanisms like SECR and ESG disclosure is what makes the commitment visible and verifiable.
The mistakes that cost organisations the most
Prioritising visible actions over significant ones
Switching to renewable energy on site, using sustainable cups and materials, printing on recycled paper; these are real and should be done. They are not where most of the footprint sits, however. A decarbonisation strategy built around visible actions is a communications exercise with some sustainability content attached.
Calling offsetting decarbonisation
An offset is not a reduction. Purchasing carbon credits to neutralise emissions leaves those emissions in the atmosphere. Offsetting has a role in a Net Zero strategy for residual emissions that cannot yet be eliminated; but it is not decarbonisation, and describing it as such is the kind of greenwashing claim that now carries regulatory consequences, not just reputational ones, as greenwashing has shifted from a communications problem to a governance one.
Measuring once
A carbon footprint calculated once and a target set once are not a decarbonisation programme. The discipline is in the repetition: measuring consistently, reporting transparently, identifying what reduced emissions and what didn't, and adjusting accordingly. Decarbonisation is a continuous operational commitment, which means it needs to be owned by operations, not parked in a sustainability report.
Stopping at Scope 1 and 2
The majority of the entertainment sector's footprint is in Scope 3: value chain emissions that include audience travel, supply chain operations, freight and end-of-life materials. Scope 3 is harder to measure and harder to influence. It is also where the biggest reductions are available. A decarbonisation strategy that excludes Scope 3 is, in most cases in this sector, excluding more than 70% of the footprint.
What to do next
If your organisation has a sustainability commitment but no clear picture of whether it adds up to a decarbonisation programme, the starting point is establishing what your footprint actually is and where it sits.
At Hope Solutions, we provide decarbonisation consultancy for organisations across music, media and live events: building programmes grounded in evidence, matched to the sector's actual emissions profile, and focused on decarbonisation solutions that address where the footprint actually sits rather than what's easiest to communicate. If you want to talk through what that looks like, get in touch.
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