Listening to your playlists could be fueling a climate disaster, but there’s a solution.
A green revolution is sweeping through the K-pop world as dedicated fans are turning their passion into a force for environmental change. Their mission? To challenge the music industry’s hidden carbon footprint, one stream at a time.
The Environmental Cost of Music Streaming
Streaming music is easy, but it comes at a cost. This is because, the complex digital system behind it leaves a big carbon footprint. But, while millions worldwide groove to their favorite K-pop tracks, few realize the ecological toll of their listening habits.
Picture this: every time we hit play on our favorite K-pop track, we set in motion a complex digital ecosystem that leaves a sizable carbon footprint. In short, this convenient system we’re used to relies on many energy-hungry parts.
Here’s how it works:
- Data centers store and process the music, acting as the core of this digital world.
- Transmission networks, the arteries of our global connectivity, ferry data across vast distances.
- Finally, our personal devices – the ones we hold or hang on walls – bring the music to our ears.
Unfortunately, each link in this chain contributes to energy consumption and subsequent emissions.
Data centers, often called the internet’s factories, use a lot of electricity to run and cool their servers. Transmission networks – A.K.A. the cell towers and cables – quietly use energy to keep our data moving.
Even our beloved devices play a part in this energy use, from power-hungry large-screen TVs to the more efficient (but still energy-using) smartphones.
This statistic becomes heavier in the context of K-pop fan culture, where “streaming parties” are common. If you don’t know, these are events where fans play songs over and over to boost their favorite artists’ chart rankings.
To put this into perspective, Kpop4planet, a fan-led environmental group, organized a survey in 2022. Here, they found that most K-pop fans spent more than five hours a day in these streaming parties.
That’s almost twice the average daily streaming time reported by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry for regular music listeners.
That’s why the environmental impact is especially big in South Korea, where K-pop comes from. For example, in 2022, 63.6% of South Korea’s electricity came from fossil fuels, with less than 10% from renewable sources.
Sure, the industry has made strides in improving energy efficiency. Data centers and networks have become more efficient over time, partly making up for the increased demand.
But as a lot of us know, there’s always room for improvement in any system.
Also, making streaming devices is another environmental challenge. Producing smartphones and TVs – our primary ways to listen to music – needs a lot of resources and energy. It’s a reminder that our listening habits have consequences beyond just our monthly subscription fees.
Kpop4planet’s Campaigns and Successes
This is where Kpop4planet comes in. It’s a small but powerful group of volunteers started in 2021 by Dayeon Lee from South Korea and Nurul Sarifah from Indonesia.
They saw that the huge K-pop fanbase could make a change. So, they set out to address the environmental issues made worse by fan culture.
But what sets Kpop4planet apart from traditional climate activism is how they use K-pop culture itself to make change. Their protests often include dancing to popular K-pop songs, creating a fun and peaceful atmosphere that fans and companies both like.
For example, on Valentine’s Day 2023, they held a protest in Seoul that got a lot of attention and showed their unique approach. Five fans, one dressed as a bee, danced to “Candy” by NCT Dream while holding up a banner asking Melon, South Korea’s largest domestic music streaming platform, to use 100% renewable energy.
But this eye-catching demonstration was just one part of a broader strategy.
Kpop4planet also made a comic explaining how streaming affects the environment, which spread widely on social media.
And, to show companies that trying to be environmentally friendly can be good for them, they also did surveys. These showed that fans would switch to more eco-friendly streaming platforms – proof that music lovers care about more than just listening.
Through these efforts, they got Melon to promise to use 100% renewable energy for its data centers by 2030.
Kpop4planet does more than just social media campaigns. They’ve also presented their concerns and ideas directly to South Korea’s National Assembly, pushing for policies to make the K-pop industry more environmentally friendly.
But, it doesn’t just end in South Korea.
The group’s efforts have connected with fans around the world. In fact, their online petitions have gotten signatures from nearly 60,000 fans in 223 countries, showing that many people in the K-pop community care about environmental issues.
Using the Power of Fandoms for Corporate Accountability
Besides Melon, Kpop4planet has also started focusing on companies that benefit from K-pop’s global popularity. They’ve pushed companies like Tokopedia, Indonesia’s largest e-commerce platform, to make plans to reduce carbon emissions.
For instance, in one big campaign, the group targeted Hyundai, which uses the K-pop band BTS as brand ambassadors.
Kpop4planet called out the car maker for a business deal to get aluminum from a company using a new coal power plant. The campaign got 11,000 signatures from fans in 68 countries and led to several meetings between Kpop4planet and Hyundai executives.
For this campaign, Kpop4planet worked closely with Indonesian BTS fan groups, showing the local impact of the planned coal power plant. They organized dance protests using BTS songs. And, they let indigenous fans share personal stories about how the plant’s construction would affect them.
The result? In March 2024, Hyundai agreed to look for other suppliers for its aluminum, marking another big win for the fan-led environmental group.
Kpop4planet’s activism doesn’t stop there.
They’ve recently teamed up with international fan groups of Blackpink to campaign against luxury brands represented by the group’s members. And, they’re now in talks with Kering (owner of Gucci and Saint Laurent) and Chanel about reducing emissions and switching to renewable energy across their supply chains.