The unseen costs of internet streaming
🌍👣How your daily internet habits increase your carbon footprint
In the spring of 2018 the music video for “Despacito” set an internet record of over five billion views on YouTube. In the process, it burned as much energy as 100,000 UK homes use in a year. According to the Shift Project, a Paris based Think Tank, transmitting and viewing online video accounts for nearly 1% of total global emissions.
We’ve gotten used to images of factories spilling smoke and traffic causing smog signifying our pollution of the atmosphere. However, we still generally see the internet as the tonic: avoid using the car by talking to people by video chat; avoid plastic creation by streaming all your entertainment. Unfortunately, the reality is slightly different, the internet and digital technologies industries account for more emissions than aerospace.
With every google search multiple servers in data centres around the world need to communicate with each other. With over 3.5 billion google searches daily this requires a lot of servers connected to the internet 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and that’s just to locate the website you want to visit.
Though we can’t see it, the Cloud is making a cloud of CO2.
#pleasantrypollution
It’s not just streaming and searching that uses energy, there is the other necessity of the internet: emails.
You simply have to be on email these days, but, do you simply have to send every email? In the UK we send more than 64 million unnecessary emails every day. According to energy company OVO, if every adult in the UK could send just one fewer “thank you” email a day we would save more than 16,433 tonnes of carbon a year – equivalent to 81,152 flights to Madrid. So next time you are sending a superfluous email. Stop. Be rude, say nothing – and save the planet.
In my email signature I have a short sentence explaining why I may not respond with an unnecessary reply. Feel free to borrow or adapt mine and add it to your signature.
“Every email sent uses the equivalent of 4g of CO2. If I do not send a polite, but unnecessary reply, please know that it is me choosing the planet over politeness. #pleasantrypollution”
How to streamline your internet use:
Move your website to be hosted on a server run on renewable energy. Companies, such as the Web Neutral Project, can support you to do this
Compress images and reduce the number of pages on your website
Reduce #pleasantrypollution by not sending unnecessary emails
At Impactful, we help businesses think about their social and environmental impact. If you’re interested in finding out more or having a chat, we’d love to hear from you. We’re also on Twitter!