Key Takeaways
• Merch Recycling Initiative: Thanks to a project spearheaded by Billie Eilish, Universal Music Group is repurposing over 400,000 unsold T-shirts into new garments through a textile recycling partnership.
• Sustainability in Music: The project reflects a broader industry trend toward sustainable merchandise, especially among artists with younger, eco-conscious audiences.
More than 400,000 unsold concert tees are getting a second life.
Singer Billie Eilish and her mother, Maggie Baird, have been working with Universal Music Group (UMG) – which represents Eilish – to find a more sustainable solution for the thousands of pounds of unsold concert merchandise the label has in its massive Nashville warehouse. Bravado, UMG’s merch arm, has stored unsold apparel there for years, if not decades, President Matt Young told Fast Company.
Eilish’s concert stop in Quebec last year broke the venue’s record for most single-day merch sales.
Rather than simply donating them – which can, in some sectors, just lead to apparel ending up in landfills or incinerated – Bravado partnered with Spanish clothing designer and textile manufacturer Hallotex to upcycle the old concert merch into new.
The company is shipping more than 400,000 old T-shirts to Morocco, where Hallotex will unspool them into cotton yarn and then respin them into more than 280,000 new 100% cotton tees that UMG artists will use in the fall. Shirts that can’t be recycled will be shredded and turned into housing insulation.
“We are drowning in clothes on this planet, much of which is in landfills, much of which is shipped to other countries to pollute their waters and their land,” Baird – Eilish’s mother – told Fast Company. “I think we have to be extremely thoughtful about what merch gets put out in the world – why does it exist, how is it made and what happens to it in its second life?”
UMG’s Nashville warehouse has thousands of pounds of old, unused concert merch that will now be upcycled into new cotton tees. (Courtesy of UMG/Bravado)
Music merch has long been an essential part of the concert experience, with high demand from fans of all ages at events from Taylor Swift’s mega Eras Tour to the Oasis reunion. It’s an industry expected to reach $16.3 billion in global sales within the next five years.
And Eilish is already no stranger to incorporating sustainable merch into that demand. She has a section of her online merch store dedicated to apparel made from recycled materials, including from a recent Earth Day partnership with three sustainable businesses. On her HIT ME HARD AND SOFT tour last year, she played a video before each show about her choice to offer sustainable merch options and what that looks like.
Her push for sustainable concert merch, though, is particularly impactful because of her heavily Gen Z audience. A recent ASI Research study on promotional products consumers found that more than 70% of Gen Z consumers said it was important for promo they receive to be environmentally friendly, more than other generations.
Young – Bravado’s president – said that it’s been Eilish, Baird and several other young artists that have pushed UMG and Bravado toward more sustainable merch options, including the upcycling program, since he’s been at the helm of the company.
And Eilish’s project is yet another indicator that sustainability is becoming more of a “must-have” than a “nice-to-have” for promo firms and beyond. Is now the time to make a joke about giving these tees a “Happier Than Ever” ending?
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