For Earth Day 2022, The Focusrite Group has officially declared a Climate and Ecological Emergency in collaboration with Music Declares. Andy Land, Head of Sustainability gave us the lowdown on what this actually means;
- We’re calling on governments and media institutions to tell the truth about the climate and ecological emergency.
- We’re calling on governments to act now to reverse biodiversity loss and reach net-zero GHG Emissions by no later than 2030.
- We recognise that the emergency is caused by global injustices and will do what we can to help enact systemic change.
- We’re acknowledging our own environmental impact, and the impact of the music industry, and are committed to taking action.
This declaration of a Climate and Ecological Emergency is an important step for us, it shows how seriously we’re taking this issue. The Focusrite Group of course has an Environmental Footprint, and I’ve been working non-stop to analyse our products to identify our environmental hotspots and putting in place steps so we can make music tech sustainable.
In March 2022 we started switching over to post-industrial recycled Aluminium in our Scarlett interfaces, reducing the footprint of our biggest selling product, and launching in June 2022 we’re also now using an 85% post-consumer recycled ABS plastic in the new Vocaster Range.
Both examples are the start of our journey incorporating more sustainable raw materials in our products. We’ll be extending use of these recycled materials across our product portfolio and will keep researching new materials so we can choose the most sustainable options possible.
Our focus doesn’t end with just the raw materials however, the analysis I’m doing covers the entire product lifecycle to the highest degree of available data. I believe it’s only by doing this detailed work, categorising, and analysing the data that we’ll be able to pull out the most significant initiatives to work on.
This is all part of a wider strategy for us to embed the Focusrite Group within the Circular Economy where products at the end of their life are the raw materials for the next generation. This all starts by choosing recycled materials upfront, and we’ve got many more initiatives on the way – Andy Land, Head of Sustainability
Andy has just recorded a podcast discussing his work with Focusrite in more detail, you can listen here.
