'No K-pop on a dead planet': K-pop fans band together to make 'stanning' sustainable

The group Kpop4Planet, run by young K-pop fans from around the world, aims to make K-pop green

Kpop4Planet activists take part in the “Save the Butter Beach” campaign aimed at saving Maengbang Beach, which is being threatened by a thermoelectric power plant. (provided by Kpop4Planet)

Kim, a 26-year-old professional who has followed several K-pop groups over the last nine years, said, "I feel guilty at times when seeing albums piled in the corner of my room. Because of the photo cards in an album and tickets for autograph events for fans, I bought like 40 albums. It’s not like I use them, and the plastic just keeps piling up, so I worry about environmental issues."

Kim Na-yeon, 16, a high school student and fan of the group NCT, said, "Whenever I buy an album, I feel like it's so overpackaged," adding, "I worry that buying an album to support my favorite singer has a bad effect on the climate crisis."

To alleviate this worry by K-pop fans worldwide, the climate action platform Kpop4Planet jumped into action on Oct. 3. The site's staff told the Hankyoreh in Zoom interviews on Oct. 12 and Thursday that "Entertainment companies must now consider the sustainability of the K-pop industry.

Nurul Sarifah, 22, an Indonesian fan of Exo who founded the platform, said, "We formed Kpop4Planet out of the belief that the climate crisis is a problem for everyone," adding, "Fans worried about what to do as K-pop fans can gather on the online platform to discuss and act on environmental issues together."

Fan of the K-pop group Exo and organizer with Kpop4Planet Nurul Sarifah (screen capture from Zoom)

The biggest issue among K-pop fans is the consumption of physical albums that require the mass production of plastic. The number of albums sold this year through September rose to 43 million, up from 42 million for all of last year. The same album often has multiple editions with photo cards and tickets to fan signing events, so a single fan might buy as many as hundreds of copies. An album is wrapped in polyvinyl chloride (PVC) — often called “one of the worst forms of plastic" — and its plastic, coated paper and CDs are made of mixed plastics that undergo chemical treatment, making recycling difficult.

Lee Da-yeon, 19, an Aespa fan and Kpop4Planet staff member, said, "An album produces too much trash. Many fans are so worried about these album problems that they even say, 'I'm sorry, Earth,' or ask, 'Instead, can you make it into something edible so that I can devour it?'"

Under the slogan "No K-pop on a dead planet," the platform has waged a campaign that promotes eco-friendly options such as digital rather than physical albums, minimizing the packaging of albums and goods, and encouraging performances that give off low carbon emissions.

"Problems are difficult to solve merely through the efforts of fans as consumers," Lee said. "In the end, we must change the structure and excessive packaging that entertainment companies use to cheaply produce many albums. A positive example is the use of eco-friendly paper in singer Chungha's album 'Querencia' for photo cards and other components."

Kpop4Planet's activities cover not only campaigns within the K-pop industry but also initiatives to prevent climate change. Last month, it conducted a signature campaign to block the construction of a coal-fired power plant near Maengbang Beach in Samcheok, Gangwon Province — a beach where a BTS album jacket was shot. They have also urged Indonesian e-commerce company Tokopedia, which appointed BTS and Blackpink as promotional ambassadors, to switch to 100% renewable energy by 2030.

Monpariya Ropnongbuya, a Thai fan of NCT and a Kpop4Planet staff member, said, "Even in occurrences in other countries, K-pop fans across the world are showing interest and support through social media," adding, "In Thailand, with the participation of the BTS fan community Army, Twitter posts related to the Maengbang Beach campaign were retweeted more than 1,000 times a day."

Kpop4Planet is interested in K-pop fans in the MZ generation — a Korean neologism referring to millennials and Generation Z — as they are most likely to be affected by climate change. "In 2019, my school was closed due to severe fine dust, so I couldn't go there for a few days. In summer, I also experienced flooding in my village and residents evacuating," Ropnongbuya said. "I felt the climate crisis."

"K-pop fans mainly belong to the MZ generation and are thus directly affected by the climate crisis, so they can't help being interested in environmental issues," Sarifah said. "Entertainment agencies must answer to fans when they say they no longer want to feel guilty while supporting K-pop singers."

By Kim Yoon-ju, staff reporter

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