Will Your ESG Policy Survive Festival Season?

A lot of organisations in music, media and entertainment have an ESG policy now. A shorter list has one that would hold up if anyone actually looked at it.

The difference between these is not commitment. The majority of sustainability leads in this sector are genuinely trying to do the right thing. The difference is that an ESG policy written to satisfy a funder, a sponsor or a procurement questionnaire is built for that specific context; and falls apart when confronted with the operational reality of a touring production, a broadcast shoot or a festival site at 11 pm on a Saturday.

This article is about what makes an ESG policy substantive rather than performative, what the environmental, social and governance dimensions each require, and why the gap between what most policies say and what organisations can actually demonstrate is getting harder to maintain as ESG regulations and reporting requirements tighten.

In this article, we’ll cover:

• What is an ESG policy
• Why most ESG policies in this sector don't hold up
• What an ESG policy needs to contain on the environmental dimension
• The social and governance dimensions that routinely get dropped
• ESG compliance, reporting requirements and what's changing in the UK
• What to do if yours doesn't hold up

So, what actually is an ESG policy?

What is an ESG policy?

An ESG policy, sometimes called an environmental, social and governance policy, is a document that sets out an organisation's formal commitments and approach across all three ESG dimensions. It is the statement of intent that sits behind an ESG strategy: the strategy defines what you are trying to achieve and how; the policy defines the principles and commitments that govern how you operate day to day.

An ESG policy meaning, at its most practical: it is the document that makes sustainability commitments specific, accountable and verifiable. 

What it is not is a values statement. 

"We are committed to operating sustainably and responsibly" is a sentence. 

The ESG policy is what turns that sentence into something testable.

A good ESG policy identifies the organisation's material ESG issues, sets specific and measurable commitments against them, names who is accountable for delivery, and specifies how performance will be measured and reported externally. Every element that cannot be measured and reported is, in practice, a declaration rather than a commitment.

Why most ESG policies in this sector don't hold up

The most common failure mode is an ESG policy written for the reader who asked for it rather than for the organisation that has to live by it. A sponsor requires evidence of an ESG policy before activating. An arts funder makes it a condition of funding. A venue partner has included it in a contract. The policy gets written to satisfy those requests, and the operational context in which the organisation actually works gets left out.

That produces documents that look credible and function poorly. An environmental policy that references "reducing our carbon footprint" without specifying which emissions are included, what the baseline is, or what the reduction target looks like over what timeframe describes an intention, not a commitment. A social policy that commits to "fair treatment of workers" without addressing the reality of a supply chain built on freelance contracts, sub-contractors and vendors with their own labour standards is not engaging with the actual risk. A governance section that promises "transparent reporting" without specifying what is being reported, to whom and how frequently has no operational meaning.

The test is practical: if someone arrived at your organisation during a build week, a touring push or a production and tried to apply the ESG policy to decisions being made in real time, would it tell them anything useful? 

For most ESG policies in this sector, the answer is no; and that is before anyone from outside asks to verify the claims.

What an ESG policy needs to contain: the environmental dimension

On the environmental side, the policy needs to specify which emissions are within scope, what measurement methodology is used, and what the reduction commitments are over what timeframe.

Referencing the GHG Protocol and covering Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions is not optional for organisations making serious environmental claims. In live events particularly, Scope 3 is where most of the footprint sits: fan travel accounts for 77.2% of UK live music emissions according to research by Hope Solutions alongside MIT, Live Nation, Warner Music Group and Coldplay. An environmental policy that doesn't address Scope 3 is not engaging with most of the organisation's actual environmental impact.

The policy should also address energy management, waste, sustainable materials and travel: specifically in the context of how the organisation operates. A live events business that references "switching to renewable energy" without acknowledging that diesel generators power most of its productions, and that those generators run at a fraction of their efficient capacity, is describing a peripheral action while ignoring the structural problem.

ESG commitments on the environmental side should be time-bound and measurable: not "we aim to reduce emissions" but "we will reduce absolute Scope 1 and 2 emissions by X% by Y against a Z baseline, tracked and reported annually."

The social and governance dimensions that routinely get dropped

Most sustainability policies in music, media and entertainment are heavily weighted toward the environmental. That reflects where public and stakeholder attention has concentrated, but it does not reflect the actual ESG risk profile of the sector.

• On the social dimension: touring and live production have documented issues around worker wellbeing, long hours, freelance insecurity and pay equity across a workforce that is disproportionately self-employed and under-protected. A sector that talks about sustainability while leaving its workforce in precarious conditions is not operating sustainably in any meaningful sense. An ESG policy that doesn't address labour standards is describing a partial version of the organisation's impact.
• On ESG governance: this is where most policies are weakest and where the consequences of weakness are greatest. ESG governance covers who is accountable for ESG performance at board or senior leadership level, how ESG is embedded in business planning and budgets, how commitments are verified, and how performance is reported externally. Without governance, the environmental and social commitments have no delivery architecture behind them.

Every commitment in the policy should be owned by a named function or individual, time-bound and measurable. "We aim to reduce emissions" is not an ESG commitment. "Scope 1 and 2 emissions will be reduced by 30% by 2030 against a 2023 baseline, overseen by the Head of Operations and reported annually in our sustainability report" is.

ESG compliance, reporting requirements and what's changing in the UK

ESG policies exist within a regulatory context that is tightening, and organisations in music, media and entertainment need to understand how their policy connects to their legal and disclosure obligations, not just their stakeholder ones.

SECR (Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting) requires large UK organisations to report publicly on energy use and carbon emissions. Many organisations in this sector qualify without realising it. ESG reporting requirements in the UK are evolving: the government published UK Sustainability Reporting Standards in February 2026, establishing a voluntary framework for sustainability-related financial disclosures that larger organisations will increasingly be expected to align with.

The FCA's Anti-Greenwashing Rule means that any environmental or sustainability claim made publicly, in marketing, on a website, or in a press release, must be accurate, substantiated and not misleading. An ESG policy full of commitments that cannot be evidenced is not just weak governance. Under current regulation, it is a legal liability. The Green Claims Code applies the same standard to product and service-level claims.

ESG regulations and ESG compliance requirements are not theoretical risks for this sector. Greenwashing is already a governance issue in live events and entertainment, not just a communications one, and an ESG policy that is not designed with these requirements in mind will need significant revision as they bed in further.

A policy designed for ESG compliance also needs to connect to the organisation's broader ESG reporting. The policy is the document that underpins everything downstream: the strategy it supports, the reports it generates, the disclosures it informs. If the policy is weak, everything built on it is weak too.

What to do if your ESG policy doesn't hold up

Start with a materiality assessment: identifying which ESG issues are genuinely significant for your organisation given how it operates. Then establish the baseline: what does current performance actually look like against those issues? From there, the policy can be written to reflect reality and set commitments that are specific, achievable and owned.

If your existing ESG policy was written quickly for a specific external purpose, it can be revised. The question is whether there is appetite to build the substance behind it: the measurement, the governance, the accountability, that makes it mean something when someone tests it.

At Hope Solutions, we work with organisations across music, media and live events to build ESG policies grounded in the sector's operational reality. If you want to talk through what that looks like for you, get in touch.