ENVIRONMENTAL & ETHICAL

Operating in an ethical way is of crucial importance to NAKED. We are passionate about the environment and the urgent need to combat climate catastrophe and we place sustainability at the core of everything we do. We cannot claim to be perfect, or to have yet reached carbon-zero, but each of NAKED's operational processes has been designed to be as sustainable as possible. Rest-assured we are working very hard to get there!

Validating our supplier's ethical and green credentials is second nature to us and we invest considerable time and money in personally undertaking hands-on research into all of our supply chains. Only this way can we personally guarantee NAKED customers that we will never make false statements.

Here are some of NAKED's key operating principles:

Eco-friendly vinyl records

Unfortunately traditionally pressed vinyl records (which make up over 99% of new vinyl records currently being made) contain highly toxic chemicals, take around 1000 years to decompose and have a very high carbon footprint. 

No NAKED records have ever been made in a traditional vinyl pressing plant.  Instead every NAKED record is made from eco-friendly vinyl with sustainably made sleeves. NAKED' first releases were manufactured in Deepgrooves - long recognised as the World's Greenest Vinyl Pressing Plant. These records are non-toxic and recyclable and the Deepgrooves operation is 99% carbon neutral and fully circular (which means that all waste is recycled). 

NAKED's 5th release - The Five Ghosts by Stars - was NAKED's first record to be pressed by Green Vinyl Records (GVR) in the Netherlands. GVR is pioneering a brand new way of pressing vinyl records and has created the World's first vinyl pressing machine which uses injection moulding rather than traditional steam pressing. It is the use of steam (with water boilers and condensers which often run 24/7) which give traditional vinyl pressing plants their huge carbon footprints. GVR's new energy saving manufacturing process has reduced energy usage by around 90% (energy usage is recorded real-time and energy savings are currently being independently certified). NAKED Record Club's 'The Five Ghosts' by Stars was one of the first albums to be pressed on this groundbreaking new machine which is still the only one of its type in the World and it is expected that all future NAKED records will be pressed on the GVR machine. When we sent Torq Campbell from Stars his copies of 'The Five Ghosts' he was blown away and told us that (despite having released 9 albums and multiple singles on vinyl) Stars music has never sounded better than on NAKED's eco-vinyl release!

Vinyl vs streaming

It is a common misconception that streaming music is more environmentally responsible than buying vinyl records, CDs or cassettes. Unfortunately nothing could be further from the truth. In order to stream music (using services like Spotify, Apple, Amazon etc) the user connects to a physical server which is storing the music. This server will usually be housed in a huge energy guzzling server farm which is operating 24/7. And that server farm is likely to be in another country and reached via huge electric data cables running underground and under oceans.

Professor Kyle Devine’s excellent and meticulously researched book Decomposed: The Political Ecology Of Music revealed that  “Listening to an album via a streaming platform for just five hours is equal in terms of carbon to the plastic of a physical CD. The comparative time for a vinyl record is 17 hours" Very few music lovers play their favourite album less than 17x, many albums will be played 100's of times over many decades! And as Kyle Devine's research was based upon traditionally manufactured records NAKED's eco-friendly vinyl releases will have a carbon footprint very significantly lower. 

And New Statesman data analysis published in November 2021 found that "the carbon footprint of Spotify streams of Olivia Rodrigo's hit single “Drivers License” since January 2021 was greater than flying from London to New York and back 4,000 times, or the annual emissions of 500 people in the UK.

Other eco-friendly vinyl innovation

In the short time since NAKED launched there have been some incredible innovations in eco-friendly vinyl. Pressing plants are making vinyl records by recycling old records and others are recycling plastic salvaged from the ocean. And most recently Evolution Music have created the World's first bioplastic records.

NAKED is constantly researching these new innovations and meeting the people behind them. We will continue to carefully monitor all advances in vinyl record manufacture but at the current time we firmly believe that the new GVR machine is producing the most environmentally responsible and best sounding vinyl records on the planet. 

A fair deal for all NAKED artists 

At NAKED we treat all artists we work with as friends and partners. We share decision making and (whenever possible) financial profits. NAKED was co-founded by a former professional musician and we understand how difficult it is for many musicians to make a decent living from music.   When artists own or control their music rights we profit share. When we are one step removed from the artist (for instance when music rights are owned by a record label) we work with the artist and label as closely as possible to ensure that the artist gains maximum benefit from the NAKED release.

Ethical and sustainable merchandise (Organic, Fair Wear and Vegan)

Finding merch which looks great, fits well and is durable when washed (not to mention sustainably made and ethical) is never easy - but we're proud to say we've done it!

All NAKED wear is manufactured by Stanley/Stella whose clothing is certified Organic, Fair Wear and Vegan by Global Organic Textile Standards GOTS, People For The Ethical Treatment Of Animal PETA, Fair Wear Foundation and OEKO-TEX. Our designs are all printed using non toxic water based OEKO-TEX certified inks.