Lorde’s new album gets Net Zero Carbon status
Grammy Award-winner Lorde’s long-awaited third album, ‘Solar Power’, has achieved Net Zero Carbon status, with help from thinkstep-anz. The project involved calculating the carbon footprint of the packaging Lorde has chosen for her album: a ‘Greenbox’. This is a disc-less album made of cardboard. The Solar Power Greenbox includes a unique download code for the album and exclusive artist material.
The impacts considered included those of sourcing raw materials like paper and inks, of making the Greenbox itself, and of transporting it to the many retailers keen to sell Lorde’s latest album. The study also allowed for the electricity involved when Lorde’s fans download the album for the first time, and assumed a worst case scenario for its disposal: that fans would send the Greenbox to landfill, rather than recycling it.
The result: the Solar Power album has a footprint of 1.5 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e). Most of these emissions are released when fans download the album to play. By comparison, driving a small petrol car for 10 km emits around 2.0 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e).
Read more about the project here.