Music. It’s the universal language. It inspires us, moves us, thrills us, heals us and ultimately unites us all. As the world’s leading music company, we nurture a culture that respects music and fosters artistry and self-expression.
Through the Global Impact Team, UMG amplifies its vision for positive change through community engagement, environmental sustainability, events and special projects. It drives positive impact across the company, industry, and local communities in which UMG operates. The Global Impact Team is comprised of members of UMG’s Social Responsibility, Sustainability, Task Force for Meaningful Change (TFMC), and The Universal Music All Together Now Foundation (ATNF) teams who partner with organizations around the globe that are working towards meaningful positive change.
Sustainability
Universal Music Group is committed to environmental sustainability in our business and across the industry, collaborating to improve our environmental impacts and leverage our cultural platform to motivate others to take action.
Reducing Our Footprint
Our purpose is to shape culture through the power of artistry, and we believe we have the opportunity to help influence culture’s response to climate change. We are committed to reducing our greenhouse gas emissions and achieving our Science Based Targets.
UMG aims to partner with suppliers who share our sustainability goals, and we incorporate our Supplier Social Responsibility Policy into all global manufacturing agreements. We have developed sustainability strategies for Universal Music Manufacturing & Logistics and Bravado, UMG’s merchandising arm. We also encourage our suppliers to take increasingly meaningful sustainability action.
Creating a Positive Handprint
UMG’s ambition is to create opportunities for our artists, employees, and fans who want to engage in environmental improvement. Through UMG Sustainability Summits, we invite our employees and key sustainability partners to engage together in addressing the issues that matter most and look to create pathways to support our artists to elevate the global causes they are passionate about.
UMG’S TASK FORCE FOR MEANINGFUL CHANGE
Founded in 2020, in the wake of the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and countless others, the TFMC was formed to make significant and sustainable efforts to ensure justice for all. Initially established as a five-year social justice commitment focused on action, impact, and change, since its founding, the organization has engaged hundreds of UMG employees and community organizations in internal and external programs across TFMC’s core bodies of work, including:
ongoing work to enhance accessibility of the music industry for artists, employees and young people from historically marginalized communities; and
The Annual TFMC Super Priority, a system under which the group focuses its efforts on a new issue each year to achieve a better and more sustainable future for everyone.
To date, TFMC has: partnered directly with internal leadership to address and expand UMG’s commitment to promoting tolerance and equality across the company; made philanthropic contributions to more than 300 social justice-focused organizations; launched industry-wide campaigns and initiatives aimed at advancing inclusivity, and built partnerships with some of the country’s leading civil rights organizations, including the NAACP, The King Center, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law, and more.
Our Priorities
With a clear vision informed by years of learning, coalition-building, and positive results, our mission remains the same – enacting thoughtful, meaningful change at UMG, across the industry and in society at large.
To deepen the breadth and scope of our impact, we are working with leaders across our global community to further embed the purpose-driven work, lens and programs of TFMC into the company’s overarching business and philanthropic strategies, being a vocal collaborator and perspective in how UMG leverages its capacity and platform to build an even more inclusive, diverse and equitable future for UMG employees and the world.
Our Path Forward
In collaboration with leaders across our company, we will continue advancing our mission with a renewed sense of possibility that expands the work of TFMC across the business and allows our global company to remain responsive to the communities and world around it. This includes partnering with UMG’s All Together Now Foundation; its People, Inclusion and Culture team; and its Public Policy division to:
further the foundational purpose and principles of TFMC, including continuing and expanding some of its successful programs, such as the TFMC x AMPAS program, the UMG HBCU partnership, Pull Up to the Polls, and the Global Urban Music A&R Program.
reflect the company’s core values, guiding pillars and verticals of work in its approach to these activities; and
implement additional coalition-building with values-aligned partners and allies equally committed to a shared vision.
The UMG x REVERB Amplifier Award celebrates artists who use their music, their reach, and their actions to create positive impact for people and the planet.
The annual UMG x REVERB Amplifier Award is a joint effort between UMG and the environmental nonprofit, REVERB, to recognize artists that have shown an outstanding commitment to creating positive change through their music and their reach. We believe music has the extraordinary power to unite, shape culture, and empower millions to take action on the issues our world faces. Each year, we honor artists who have shown a remarkable dedication to realizing the unmatched power of music to create a better world.
2024 Recipient: boygenius
In 2024, boygenius – Julien Baker, Lucy Daucus, and Phoebe Bridgers – was recognized for their efforts on their 2023 tour to support LGBTQ equality, reproductive justice, Indigenous land rights, and climate initiatives, on both a local and national level.
View the press release about boygenius’s Amplifier Award win here.
(L-R) boygenius’ Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker. Photo by Max Webb for UMG.
(L-R) Adam Gardner, Co-Founder & Co-Director of REVERB; Phoebe Bridgers; Lucy Dacus, Julien Baker; Sir Lucian Grainge, UMG Chairman & CEO. Photo by Christopher Polk for Billboard.
2023 Recipient: Billie Eilish
In 2023, Billie Eilish was selected as the first-ever recipient of the UMG x REVERB Amplifier Award in recognition of her work setting a new benchmark for sustainable touring, raising over $1 Million for climate causes, and using her platform to empower millions of her fans to take action on environmental and social issues.
View the press release about UMG’s partnership with REVERB and Billie Eilish’s Amplifier Award win here.
Billie Eilish. Photo by Vivien Killilea/Getty Images for UMG.
(L-R) Sir Lucian Grainge; Billie Eilish; Lara Seaver, Director of Projects at REVERB and Adam Gardner. Photo by Lester Cohen/Getty Images for UMG.
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Universal Music Group is committed to environmental sustainability in our business and across the industry, collaborating to improve our environmental impacts and leverage our cultural platform to motivate others to take action.
