Secretly Group
SUSTAINABILITY AT THE SECRETLY AFFILIATES
September 2026
Dear Friends,
Sustainability is foundational to The Secretly Affiliates (Dead Oceans, Jagjaguwar, Secretly Canadian, Saddest Factory Records, Ghostly International, Drink Sum Wtr, Sacred Bones, The Numero Group, Merge Records, Secretly Publishing and Secretly Distribution). Beginning in 2021, we made a formal commitment to improve our environmental impact with the adoption of our first sustainability plan.
In 2026, we successfully de-gassed our London office moving to 100% renewable electricity. Additionally, we expanded our warehouse solar array with an additional 46 KWp, bringing the total capacity to 80KWp to supply the majority of our electric usage on that site with an anticipated 40-50% reduction in Scope 2 emissions. We’re also making improvements to the Bloomington Office by installing a lighter-colored roof with a solar array to reflect the light and lighten the need for our A/C in the summer months. To fund these projects, we’re pulling forward approximately two years’ worth of expected insetting funds.
We’ve deepened our partnership with Murmur to tackle the most entrenched aspects of our carbon footprint: manufacturing and shipping emissions. We understand that fundamental shifts cannot happen in isolation, thus making collective industry effort via Murmur essential to our mission. The results of this collaboration are already showing real progress with our Scope 3 gains:
- Vinyl Manufacturing: An additional 16% reduction in emissions Year-over-Year (YoY), even as our total LPs increased by 27%. This was accomplished through partnering with our plants to drive down emissions - primarily through the EcoMix/ReVinyl recycled vinyl campaign and encouraging them to be more sustainability minded.
- Shipping Emissions: We saw a remarkable 44% decrease in shipping emissions YoY achieved via enhanced stock management, consolidated shipments, and a deepening partnership with FedEx, who we’ve identified as being the carrier with the most aggressive sustainability goals.
While we are extremely proud of our progress, we are equally transparent about where we need to focus. Our Scope 1 & 2 emissions (effectively our gas and electric utility bills) continue to climb though our Scope 3 efficiency gains have more than offset these increases. Our 2025 utility use is 147% over our 2030 target, our overall Scope 3 efficiencies have helped us surpass our cumulative Scopes 1, 2 & 3 goal by 35% (1820 total MTCO2e in 2025 vs. a goal of 2768 total MTCO2e by 2030).
Where I’ve said many times before that our path is anything but clear, I feel the picture is coming into focus. As we’ve surpassed our 2030 goals ahead of time, we’ll spend the next few months re-evaluating even more ambitious targets. As always, we are committed to forward progress in which we 1) do not let perfect be the enemy of the good and 2) respect that sustainability is a journey, not a destination.
We welcome all questions, concerns and, above all, dialogue as we continue our journey.
Yours,
Ben Swanson
Co-founder and COO
OUR GOALS
Last year we renewed our goals, and pledged the following achievements by 2030:
We joined the Music Climate Pact in 2021 with an initial commitment to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2026. We had set out to achieve this commitment to carbon-neutrality for our Scope 1 & 2 emissions by investing in carbon offset projects. But over the past few years, we have come to believe that focusing primarily on offset programs is not the solution to the climate crisis.
These new emission reduction targets - set in 2024 - align with current best practice and the Science Based Targets initiative. We’re proud to say we have prematurely achieved our second goal 6 years early through our manufacturing reduction efforts. Looking to the future, we are working towards new, updated supply chain/business travel reduction goals that we will announce here.
We are committed to doing our part—in partnership with our artists, peers, and collaborators—to help us collectively avoid the worst consequences of runaway climate change. Join us!
OUR CARBON FOOTPRINT
We have measured and offset our Scope 1 emissions (from methane gas used in our facilities and diesel used in a company truck) and Scope 2 emissions (from electricity use) since 2019. Over time, we have introduced measurement and reporting of our Scope 3 emissions from our business travel, and manufacturing and shipping of our products. 2023 was the first year for which we have a relatively complete and accurate understanding of our entire in-house and supply chain carbon footprint, so 2023 is the baseline against which we will measure future progress toward our carbon reduction goals.
The Secretly affiliates (Dead Oceans, Jagjaguwar, Secretly Canadian, Saddest Factory Records, Ghostly International, drink sum wtr, Sacred Bones, The Numero Group, 37d03d, Secretly Publishing and Secretly Distribution) 2025 carbon footprint is 1,820 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MTCO2e). That’s the same amount of greenhouse gas emissions created from 360 U.S. homes’ electricity use for a year or burning more than 4,200 barrels of oil! It’s a big footprint, but as per the above, we’re continuing to invest our time, money and energy into reductions to meet our goals.
The Secretly Affiliates 2025 Carbon Footprint
Scope 3 supply chain emissions from manufacturing and shipping our products all over the world dominate our carbon emissions at 83% of our total 2025 carbon footprint. Powering and heating our offices contribute another 12% of our carbon footprint, with the remaining 5% of emissions coming from global business travel.
OUR PROGRESS
Progress from Our Internal Operations (Scope 1 & 2 Emissions)
While we can most directly influence Scope 1 (methane gas used for space and water heating in our facilities) and Scope 2 (electricity used to power and cool our facilities), we've found that these investments provide the least amount of leverage in driving down total emissions. Regardless, we continue our work to reduce these Scope 1 & 2 emissions across our global sites, with projects investing in 100% renewable energy across all our buildings and replacing gas appliances with electric options where possible.
- Our warehouse array grew from 34 kWp in 2025 to 80 kWp in 2026. This expansion provides an additional 46 kWp, enough to supply the majority of the site's electric usage.
- Replacing our roof with a lighter color material and a solar array at our Bloomington office, to be reported in next year's 2026 report.
- De-gassed our London office, which is now powered by 100% renewable electricity.
- Additionally, we were able to sell our diesel truck, eliminating those emissions completely in 2025
- To help fund these projects, we pulled forward both, the unused insetting-fund balances carried over from previous years' delays and roughly two years' worth of funds not yet raised.
Going forward, we’ll continue to drive fossil fuels and carbon emissions out of our in-house operations by:
- Adding solar panels and batteries to more facilities when we can.
- Replacing methane gas appliances with energy-efficient electric options like heat pumps.
- Making our offices and warehouses more energy efficient, for example, by sealing up gaps and cracks around windows and doors and adding insulation in older facilities.
- Minimizing refrigerant leaks from our air conditioning systems.
Despite these projects, our Scope 1 & 2 emissions continue to climb (see the cover letter for the full utility figures). This is why facilities efficiency remains our top investment priority even as our overall footprint shrinks.
Progress from Our Supply Chain and Business Travel (Scope 3 Emissions)
Scope 3 emissions - which are created from our business travel and manufacturing and shipping our products - are trickier to control but have far greater potential for a positive climate impact than what we can do in our facilities alone. Starting with what we can directly manage, we're seeing the benefit of our sustainable travel policy that was adopted in 2023. All travel requests must meet a documented business need, and use of the lowest-carbon travel option - for example, taking the train or bus over flying or opting to carpool rather than drive alone - is required. As such, our travel emissions are down 17% over the previous year.
Influencing our supply chain is tougher, but we’re up to the challenge!
Despite annual increases in vinyl volume across all Secretly affiliates, our manufacturing emissions are down considerably vs. the previous year (see the cover letter for the year-over-year vinyl manufacturing figures). The reduction reflects more intentional forecasting and limiting the amount of product we have on-hand at any given time, smarter pressing quantities, and the EcoMix/ReVinyl recycled vinyl campaign we're running with our pressing partners. Our partnership with Murmur also surfaced an update to our emissions factors: the ones we'd been using in previous calculations were outdated, and the modernized factors — reflected in this year's report — show a lower emissions cost per unit manufactured than we'd previously calculated.
We also saw a notable decrease in shipping emissions year-over-year (see the cover letter for the exact figure), achieved through enhanced stock management, consolidated shipments, and a deepening partnership with FedEx, whom we've identified as the carrier with the most aggressive sustainability goals.
Our primary manufacturing partner, IRP, has been carbon neutral since 2022 and we are engaged in direct dialogue with PRP to support their efforts to measure, reduce, and offset their emissions.
Through industry groups like Murmur, we are collaborating in strategic investments for the industry at large, and we have also been testing new materials such as increasing recycled content as well as techniques like injection molding. We are always looking for ways to reduce product packaging and increase recyclability.
We will continue to utilize our insetting carbon fund to invest in our supply chain partners to implement projects that 1) enhance music industry understanding of best practices for limiting the negative effects of climate change and 2) lower our partners' greenhouse gas emissions, which in turn lowers our own—and hopefully others'—carbon footprint. This is in lieu of investing in carbon offset projects that are disconnected from our mission.
Each year, we establish a carbon value for contributing to the insetting fund. Last year we assigned a value of $75.00MTCO2e for our Scopes 1-2 and $30/MTCO2e for our Scope 3 emissions. This year we have increased our price to:
- Scopes 1-2: $75.00/MTCO2e (no change)
- Scope 3: $45.00/MTCO2e
In addition to this insetting fund, we will continue to make progress on our Scope 3 emissions from travel and our supply chain by:
- Enhancing education on our sustainable travel policy and exploring the use of internal carbon budgets to influence travel decisions
- Investing in industry initiatives via Murmur to research and test lower-carbon vinyl production materials and technologies
- Continuing essential dialog with our manufacturing suppliers to support their journeys towards sustainability
- Minimizing the travel distance between manufacturers and our distribution hubs
- Working with our shipping and courier partners to optimize shipments, transport routes, and modes
- Minimise overstocks via the optimisation of our forecasting tools, and experimenting with services like Print-on-Demand
- Reducing product weights by choosing lower weight formats and minimizing packaging
- Recycling unsold formats, packaging, and damaged unsaleable products
- Joining forces with like-minded cultural institutions and lobbying as a collective to make fundamental change in the industry
We welcome collaboration – join us! To learn more about our initiatives and share ideas for ways to make a positive impact on the climate and our environment, contact info@secretlygroup.com.