JYP Entertainment and JYP himself presented the 2021 JYP ESG REPORT on August 3 where the public and fans got an inside view of JYP Entertainment’s goals and plans for the future. A lot of good ideas were being presented – better work environment for employees by giving them more freedom, health care & employees can send in ideas on how to improve the workplace and work environment. That was just one part of the presentation and the report, and there are so many more areas that are being worked on and improved, so if you want to learn more you should definitely check out the report and the presentation.
Environment 🌏
JYP Entertainment has signed a contract with a domestic solar company, and is the first Korean entertainment company to implement RE100 and uses 100% renewable energy (JYP Entertainment ESG Report 2021, Page 42).
Other environmental ideas that JYP Ent. has is to reduce the material waste of physical albums by looking for other alternatives. We have seen other companies putting out other alternatives than the normal physical album: IST’s platform albums, HYBE’s J-Hope Jack in the box album & etc. So it’s about time that JYP Ent. is doing something similar towards a better planet.
There are different reasons for fans to buy multiple albums of the same album. Photocards, if you want a full set of photocards from an album you have to buy multiple albums, and if you take ITZY’s newest album where you get 2 out of 25 photocards per album than you realize quick that you need to buy 13 albums to get a full photocard set if you don’t get any duplicates which highly possible. JYP Entertainment has been one of the worst on how many albums need to be purchased for getting a full set of photocards.
There are also some fans that buy multiple albums to raise album sales and get extra points for music shows, but I believe the biggest criminal is the fansigns. To get a chance to get in a fansign you have to buy albums to get into a lottery where the more albums purchased the bigger chance you have to get in, and for really popular groups people buy 100+ albums to get a good chance to get in. Some fans that try for fansigns hold Group Orders to save money and minimize material waste.
The pandemic has seen a surge of online video call fansigns. The large amount of albums also need to be transported to the other side of the world which takes a big toll on the environment. The sites that hold those video call fansigns also have their own unique official photocards for each fansign that comes with the album which many fans want to collect.
Conclusion: It’s about time that JYP Entertainment is addressing the issue of material waste of albums because they are one the biggest entertainment companies and also one the biggest promoter of material waste. This is definitely the right direction for albums. It doesn’t seem like they are going to stop making physical albums, but adding alternative albums that have no or little material waste that can be used for applying to fansigns and finishing photocard sets. They are also looking to make the physical albums more eco-friendly by using FSC-certified paper, soybean oil link, and coatings that emit less chemicals.
Source: JYP Entertainment ESG Report 2021, 08.2022, http://ir.jype.com/Pc/IrDataView?idx=119&PgIndex=1&LDiv=KO
