Carbon impact of video streaming

This white paper is about the carbon impact of watching one hour of video streaming.

(specifically in reference to on demand streaming, not live streaming). It looks at this from a life cycle perspective, and presents the results in terms of carbon emissions for one hour of video streaming. It considers the energy use of the different components that are involved in the distribution and viewing of video content: data centres and content delivery networks (used for encoding and storage); internet network transmission; home routers; end-user viewing devices (e.g. TVs, laptops, tablets, smartphones); and TV peripherals (e.g. set-top boxes), where relevant.

Streaming video is on average 3000 times less than traveling to a face to face conference or meeting.

This white paper explains the details of the assumptions and methods used and discusses the challenges and uncertainties involved in estimating the carbon impact of video streaming.

The aim is to contribute to the understanding of the topic, so that future decisions can be based on an informed understanding of the issue, with an insight of the methods, uncertainties and variability that can affect the estimates.