Are your K-Pop albums destroying the planet?

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K-Pop fans and environmental advocates are calling for entertainment companies to lessen the plastic waste that comes with excessive album marketing for K-Pop groups.

Advocate group Kpop4Planet said their “Plastic Album Sins” campaign intends to call out mass-producing K-Pop albums, which encourages duplicate purchases that increase the presence of unused items often discarded by fans. 

The campaign targets the four major entertainment companies in South Korea: HYBE Labels, JYP Entertainment, YG Entertainment, SM Entertainment.

Speaking to GMA News Online, South Korean Kpop4Planet campaigner Nayeon Kim said the campaign also demands for the four entertainment companies to also "disclose their greenhouse gas emissions and the amount of album-related waste, and establish a reduction plan," apart from demanding the four major entertainment companies to stop "abusive album marketing that encourages fans to purchase duplicate copies."

Through the campaign, the group demands for a change in fan-signing event applications, to stop giving out random photocards in each album, and to reduce the number of album versions, with Kim saying the album marketing tactic was among the most environmentally damaging and wasteful practices of the entertainment industry.

“When an artist makes a comeback, they release multiple versions of the album, either with different covers or different outfits and photoshoot concepts. Fans buy a lot of albums to collect all the versions of their artists. Even the types of photocards are different for each album version,” Kim said.

“Fans often do not feel the value of collecting other components besides the photocards, so most of them are discarded,” she added.

According to Kpop4Planet, production of albums relies on plastics, which means it's heavily dependent on fossil fuels and contributed to carbon emissions through the entire process.

Fossil fuels are burned to produce plastic, with 99% of all plastics made from fossil fuels. In a 2024 interview, Von Hernandez, global coordinator of Break Free from Plastic, a global movement of more than 3,500 organizations, said " if plastics were a country, they say it would be the 5th largest emitter of the world.” 

Data from Kpop4Planet estimated that around 500 grams of carbon emissions are produced for every CD.
If this was equated to the first week sales of SM girl group Aespa’s “My World” album, emissions produced by the 1.69 million copies sold is equivalent to encircling the Earth 74 times via airplane.

Kim and the rest of Kpop4Planet refuse to put the blame — or the onus to solve the problem — on fans, instead saying "album marketing tactics can only be changed by entertainment companies' actions."

So far, the campaign has received over 10,000 petitions worldwide and has attracted the attention of the Korean National Assembly and investors of the Korean entertainment industry.

Campaigning for Environmental Change

“2024 was the hottest year on record and we have been facing more climate disasters than ever. This should be a wake-up call for all of us, including the entertainment companies, that our time is running out. The climate crisis should be taken seriously and entertainment companies should prove themselves by taking real action by ending their misleading marketing tactics. And their cultural influence will be even bigger than the actual emission reduction,” Kim said.

In the west, artists like Billie Eilish have taken notice of the same problem and started advocating for solutions. For her 2024 "Hit Me Hard"album, the award-winning singer-songwriter also released an accompanying sustainability plan, with vinyl copies pressed on 100% recycled records, and packaging made with recycled materials.  

For 2025, Kpop4Planet called for a “more advanced and sustainable” K-pop industry.

“K-pop fans are the future generation that will be directly hit by the consequences of the climate crisis. That’s why we no longer want to feel guilty that we are worsening the climate crisis because of the K-pop we love,” she claimed.

Launched in 2021, Kpop4Planet is a collection of K-pop fans concerned about the climate crises who banded together to encourage entertainment companies in South Korea to take action.

The organization has been affiliated with several groups, including United Nations Global Compact Korea, in their campaign to lessen the environmental impacts of the K-pop industry. — LA, GMA Integrated News