Environmental policy
Adapting for a sustainable creative future
From Frédéric Brun, co-founder and CEO
As a manufacturer of musical instruments and audio equipment, we use electronic components, printed circuit boards, metal, wood, plastic, cardboard boxes… all of which bear significant impact on our planet.
In addition, we sell our products in over 80 countries, involving all sorts of logistics and distances; this, without a doubt, produces carbon emissions.
As an ever-expanding team of professionals, we commute to our offices, we use computers and paper, we maintain servers and use social media extensively; all of this also contributes to our carbon footprint.
So, what can we do about it?
In 2020, we started working with independent consulting firm UTOPIES, who measured every aspect of our carbon footprint, from the early stages of product design to the electricity consumption of our marketing and logistics. These benchmarks were then transformed into meaningful, realistic action points that we could take, which you will see detailed further down on this page.
As of 2023, many of our flagship products are made with minimum 40% recycled plastic; our latest generation of KeyLab Essential controllers use PCBs that are 18% smaller; our packaging is made with 100% recyclable materials; we now offer a 5-year warranty on the MiniFuse & MiniLab 3 ranges; this is just a handful of actions taken, and the list continues to grow.
We’re thrilled to announce that not only has our overall carbon footprint decreased since 2021; efficiency has also improved significantly. Alongside 25% lower emissions within the past two years, we’ve gone from 362 tonnes of CO2 per million Euros of turnover to 293.
All of this is not easy, frankly speaking, but it’s certainly necessary. We will continue to have an impact on our planet, just like many human activities do. But we’d like, as we grow, to reduce this impact to the minimum. So that we can be proud of our work, not only when we see our instruments on stage or receive positive emails at the support desk, but also when we look back and consider the overall picture.
_Frédéric BrunWhere our carbon comes from
The first step on our climate journey was to understand our impact. In 2020, we reached out to UTOPIES, the leading independent sustainability consulting firm in France who specialize in calculating carbon footprints. Every year, they explain how our carbon impact is spread across both direct and indirect emissions, covering the following three scopes:
(above) Our carbon footprint breakdown for 2021-22
- Scope 1 - Emissions made directly by a company, like vehicle operation and business facilities.
- Scope 2 - Indirect emissions from energy purchased for company usage.
- Scope 3 - Emissions indirectly caused by every other aspect of the company's output; distribution, employee commuting, waste disposal, and everything in between.
Today, Arturia's total carbon footprint is: 14,847 tCO2e
99% of those emissions fall under scope 3. To put it into perspective, our total footprint equates to the manufacture of 260,000 iPhones.
CARBON FOOTPRINT AND CLIMATE STRATEGY EVALUATION DOCUMENTS:
How we’re reducing our emissions
Implementing an effective strategy involves every team, every distributor, and every manufacturing partner to establish not just long-term goals, but the daily actions that can be taken to make the difference that's needed.
While Utopies gathered the hard evidence needed, we turned to our own employees and user community to hear what they had to say. These are the people at the frontline, both in terms of creating our products and exploring sound with them out in the wild.
Our action points for reducing our carbon footprint can be summarized into three main areas of focus:
Our products
Raw materials account for the biggest chunk of our carbon footprint – 73% to be exact. It’s no surprise, then, that a big part of our action plan is to reduce emissions related to what goes into our products by rethinking our designs. Manufacturing also represents 11%, so we’re taking a good look at how to make our production less carbon intensive. We’re also working with our suppliers to bring down their carbon footprint.
- Embed eco-design thinking in R&D and product management teams
- Use recycled and low carbon materials in our products and packaging
01.Eco-design our products to lower their carbon intensity
- Standardise mechanical design in order to reuse the tooling
02.Reuse production tooling
- Collaborate with our suppliers to help them reduce their emissions, for example by reducing their packaging
03.Engage our suppliers in a low carbon approach
Our management
Leading by example means we have to challenge our everyday habits too. We’re coming up with nifty ways to make our offices more sustainable, as well as how our employees get there.
- Reduce water and electricity consumption
- Implement a selective waste sorting system
- Company mobility plan:
- We are supporting commuting by bike by paying €0.25/km (up to €200/year) and reimbursing 50% of our employees’ public transport passes
04.Implement an internal energy saving policy
Our clients
Finally, we’re involving our customers. You didn’t honestly think we’d forget you, did you?
- Reduce emissive transport and relocate logistic centres as close as possible to our customers
05.Limit carbon intensive modes of transport for distributing our products to customers
- Develop less carbon intensive goodies
- Publish an annual carbon footprint report and action plan
06.Set up a low carbon approach for our marketing communications
- Establish partnerships for the collection and recycling of our products
07.Collect and recycle Arturia products at the end of their life
Let's have fun and explore sound sustainably
As we continue pushing to offer our users a more sustainable experience, we’ll keep you informed on our annual targets, changes we’ve made, and successes along the way. We hope this inspires you to join us on a journey towards sustainable sound exploration - we couldn’t do it without you.