What a Credible ESG Strategy Looks Like in Entertainment

The phrase "ESG strategy" gets used loosely in music, media and entertainment. It appears in sustainability reports, investor presentations, award nominations and press releases. It is frequently confused with a carbon footprint, a set of policies, a communications plan, or a collection of good intentions. It is rarely all of those things at once, and when it isn't, the gap between the label and the reality is increasingly the source of reputational, regulatory and commercial risk.

An ESG strategy is something specific. It is a structured framework that defines what an organisation's material environmental, social and governance issues are, sets measurable targets against them, embeds accountability into operations, and tracks progress over time. 

Done well, it is the document that connects values to action: and that lets an organisation demonstrate, not just assert, that it takes sustainability seriously.

This article is about what that looks like in music, media and entertainment specifically: where the context, the emissions profile and the stakeholder pressures are different from the corporate mainstream.

In this article, we’ll discuss:

• What an ESG strategy actually is 
• Why ESG strategy in this sector is different
• The building blocks: materiality, measurement, targets and governance
• ESG strategy in practice: examples from music, media and live events
• Common mistakes and how to avoid them
• How to get started

Let’s start with what ESG strategy actually is.

What an ESG strategy actually is 

ESG stands for environmental, social and governance. An ESG strategy is an organisation's structured response to its material impacts and risks across all three dimensions.

Environmental covers emissions, energy, materials, water and waste. 

Social covers people: employees, supply chain workers, communities affected by operations, and audiences. 

Governance covers how an organisation is run: board accountability, anti-corruption, transparency and reporting integrity.

A strategy without all three is incomplete. Most organisations in this sector have more developed environmental positions than social or governance ones, which creates a lopsided picture. ESG reporting frameworks, and the investors and funders using them, look at all three.

An organisation with strong carbon commitments and weak labour standards in its supply chain, or strong environmental claims and poor governance around how those claims are verified, has an ESG strategy in name only.

It is also worth distinguishing an ESG strategy from related but distinct concepts. A carbon footprint is a measurement exercise: the output of a GHG accounting process. A Net Zero target is a commitment: what you are aiming for. A sustainability report is a disclosure: what you are communicating externally. 

An ESG strategy is the framework that connects all of these: it defines what matters, sets the direction, and creates the accountability structures to make progress real. Without a strategy, a carbon footprint is just a number, and a Net Zero target is just a pledge. Greenwashing in live events typically begins at exactly this gap.

Why ESG strategy in this sector is different

The corporate ESG strategy playbook does not translate directly to music, media and entertainment. The sector has a distinctive profile that shapes what a credible ESG strategy needs to cover.

On the environmental side, the emissions are not where most organisations expect them to be. Research by Hope Solutions alongside MIT, Live Nation, Warner Music Group and Coldplay, analysing more than 80,000 live music events, found that fan travel accounts for 77.2% of UK live music emissions. Power accounts for 3.4%. An ESG strategy that prioritises on-site energy without engaging with audience travel is not responding to the material environmental issue: it is responding to the visible one. That is a meaningful distinction when targets and reporting are built on it.

The social dimension is also distinct. The music and entertainment industries have significant labour and supply chain dynamics, from touring crew working conditions, to freelance contractor relationships, and diversity and representation across the value chain, that are material to a credible ESG position. The future of touring increasingly depends on whether organisations can demonstrate that their environmental ambitions don't come at the cost of fair treatment of the people who make events happen.

On governance, the scrutiny is intensifying. 

The FCA's Anti-Greenwashing Rule has made sustainability claims a compliance issue. The Green Claims Code requires that claims be substantiated. And why greenwashing is no longer a communications issue but a governance one is a principle that applies directly to how ESG strategy is owned and overseen at the board level. An ESG strategy that lives in the sustainability team but not in the boardroom is structurally inadequate for the scrutiny now being applied.

The building blocks: materiality, measurement, targets and governance

A credible ESG strategy has four components that need to be in place and connected.

• Materiality assessment is the starting point. A materiality assessment identifies which ESG issues are most significant for an organisation, based on their impact on the business and on the world. In music, media and entertainment, material issues typically include carbon emissions (particularly travel and energy), supply chain labour standards, waste, diversity and inclusion, and community impact. Materiality determines where the strategy focuses: doing this well means the strategy is responding to what actually matters, not what's easiest to act on. For Lapland UK, the materiality assessment involved stakeholder engagement to identify and prioritise key sustainability topics, and was the foundation on which the full sustainability strategy, reporting framework and carbon reduction roadmap were built.
  
  
• Measurement establishes the baseline. You cannot set meaningful targets without knowing where you are starting from. For environmental issues, this means a GHG Protocol-compliant carbon footprint covering Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions. For social issues, it means data on workforce composition, supply chain standards, and community engagement. Getting measurement right is harder than it sounds, particularly for Scope 3, which in this sector typically contains the majority of the environmental footprint. Hope Solutions' work with Frieze London and Frieze Masters from 2018 to 2024: engaging key stakeholders to collect impact data, assessing emissions across key impact areas, and comparing performance against a 2018 baseline year-on-year: is an example of what consistent, rigorous measurement looks like in practice: a picture that improves in accuracy over time and provides a reliable basis for target-setting and year-on-year comparison.
  
  
• Targets give the strategy direction and accountability. The most credible targets in the current landscape are aligned with Science Based Targets (SBTi),  independently validated commitments to reduce emissions in line with a 1.5°C pathway. Targets that aren't grounded in this level of rigour are increasingly questioned by investors, funders and partners. See Hope Solutions' work with Carabao on Net Zero action planning for an example of how target-setting is structured as part of a broader strategic process.
  
  
• Governance is what makes the rest of it mean something. ESG commitments that are not owned at the board or senior leadership level, not integrated into business planning, and not subject to independent verification tend not to deliver. The governance structures that matter are: who is accountable for ESG performance, how it is reported internally and externally, and what mechanisms exist to verify that what is being claimed is what is actually happening. SECR reporting requirements, ESG disclosure frameworks, and the regulatory pressure from the FCA all reinforce why this is not optional.

ESG strategy in practice: examples from music, media and live events

Abstract frameworks are useful… but concrete examples are more useful.

The Earthshot Prize

The Earthshot Prize presents one of the most demanding sustainability challenges in the entertainment sector: a global event with an environmental mission, held in a different country each year, and expected to embody the principles it promotes. 

Hope Solutions has worked with the Earthshot Prize since its inception, capturing and reporting on the full carbon impact of the Awards Ceremony and surrounding Earthshot Week events year on year. The challenge: complex, multi-stakeholder, multi-venue operations with a need to meet several different reporting requirements simultaneously, including annual emissions reporting, project-based events reporting and Albert certification, is exactly the kind of work that requires a strategy, not just a measurement exercise. 

With Hope Solutions' input, the Earthshot Prize Award has recorded and reported a holistic picture of its impact for the past four years, aiding internal teams and suppliers to make more informed decisions and sustainable choices year on year.

The King's Coronation Concert 2023

The King's Coronation Concert 2023 demonstrates what ESG strategy looks like when it has to be delivered under public scrutiny and to the highest standards. 

As a trusted sustainability partner for BBC Studio Events across multiple high-profile projects over five years, including the Queen's Platinum Jubilee, the Festival of Remembrance and the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest, Hope Solutions provided strategic sustainability planning, operational support, waste management, stakeholder and supplier engagement, and full Albert-based carbon footprint modelling and impact reporting for the Coronation Concert.

The outcome was an event that successfully minimised its environmental footprint while setting a new standard for sustainable live event production.

Lapland UK

Lapland UK is a premium immersive Christmas experience company that sought to enhance its sustainability efforts, align with industry best practices, and work towards recognised certifications. 

Hope Solutions delivered a baseline sustainability review, materiality assessment, and full ESG strategy: conducting stakeholder engagement to identify and prioritise key sustainability topics, assessing performance against top standards, and creating a roadmap towards ISO 20121 and B Corp certification. The work defined sustainability goals, a reporting framework, a carbon reduction roadmap, supply chain ESG alignment, and governance frameworks, delivering a strategy, roadmap and reporting framework that embedded sustainability into core operations and established measurable carbon reduction targets.

Frieze London and Frieze Masters

Frieze London and Frieze Masters have worked with Hope Solutions on carbon footprinting and sustainability support continuously from 2018 to 2024. 

The work involved engaging key stakeholders to collect activity impact data, assessing emissions across key impact areas, and tracking performance against a 2018 baseline across successive editions, with recommendations to meet targets and reduce negative impacts. 

On site, Hope Solutions oversaw waste management, communications and reduction initiatives, monitoring skip use and waste volumes, and delivering site-specific strategies to improve waste reduction, recycling and circular economy integration. Six years of consistent measurement is what makes targets and year-on-year comparisons meaningful.

Tortuga Music Festival

Tortuga Music Festival, working with Live Nation, required both a carbon footprint assessment and the creation of a sustainability strategy framework and action plan. 

Hope Solutions engaged key stakeholders to collect impact data for the 2022 and 2023 festival operations, used that assessment to create a comprehensive carbon footprint report demonstrating the main sources of emissions and key areas for reduction, and then designed an overarching sustainability framework aligned to a long-term sustainability plan focused on key impact areas highlighted by the assessment. 

The work also included implementation support, ongoing guidance on how to communicate policies to stakeholders, achieve buy-in from all parties, and guidance on tactical interventions particularly around power management. 2022 and 2023 GHG assessments were carried out and presented back to the Festival and Live Nation teams in a comprehensive report with year-on-year comparison and tactical recommendations.

These examples share a pattern: measurement first, then strategy, then targets, then accountability and implementation support. The organisations that try to do this in reverse, starting with commitments and working back to the data, consistently end up with an ESG strategy that doesn't hold up under scrutiny.

Common mistakes and how to avoid them

Starting with communications, not substance

The most common ESG strategy failure in this sector is producing a document that describes values and commitments without the measurement and governance infrastructure to back them up. An ESG strategy is not a sustainability report. It is the thing that makes a sustainability report credible.

Treating materiality as a formality

A materiality assessment that is done quickly to tick a box produces a strategy that focuses on the wrong things. Given that fan travel dominates the emissions profile of most live music organisations, an ESG strategy that doesn't address it,] because the data is hard to get or the intervention is uncomfortable, is not responding to what is material.

Confusing ESG with environmental

Social and governance issues are part of the framework, not an optional add-on. Supply chain labour standards, diversity in senior leadership, and governance of sustainability claims are all ESG issues. Organisations that treat ESG as synonymous with carbon are systematically underreporting their material risks.

Setting targets without a pathway

A Net Zero commitment without a reduction pathway is a pledge, not a strategy. Understanding Net Zero principles, what counts as a genuine reduction, what the role of offsets is, and what the difference between carbon neutral and net zero actually means, is essential before any target is made public.

Leaving ESG in the sustainability team

ESG strategy that isn't owned at the board level, integrated into business planning, and connected to financial decision-making is structurally inadequate. The scrutiny now being applied, by the FCA, by funders, by investors, by partners, requires that ESG is a governance matter, not a communications one.

How to get started

If your organisation doesn't yet have an ESG strategy, the starting point is a baseline: a materiality assessment that establishes what your material issues are, and a measurement exercise that tells you where you currently are on the most significant ones. That foundation makes everything else, from targets, to governance and reporting, meaningful rather than arbitrary.

If you have an ESG strategy but aren't confident it would hold up to scrutiny, the question to ask is: can every claim in it be substantiated with data, independently verified, and traced to a methodology that external stakeholders would recognise? If the answer is no, that is the gap to close.

At Hope Solutions, we work with organisations across music, media and live events to develop ESG strategies that are grounded in evidence, built for the sector, and structured to deliver. If you want to talk through what that looks like for your organisation, get in touch.

‍