Net zero internet video?

“There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth. We are all crew.” Marshall McLuhan

How to calculate

• [[Modelling]]
• [[Digital CO2 analysis]]
• [[Scope 1, 2 & 3]] - how wide a scope should be calculated?
• [[Lifecycle analysis]] - why it's more than just CO2eqv emissions
• [[Per capita emissions]]

Research & organisations

• [[Case studies]]
• [[DIMPACT]]
• BBC White Paper, Sept 2020
• Carbon Trust & DIMPACT's Carbon impact of video streaming

Initatives

• [[Sustainable filmmaking initatives]]
• [[Green hosting]]
• [[Crypto Climate Accord]]
• [[Verified Carbon Units]]
• [[Verified Carbon Units]]
• [[Web page optimisation]]
• Open Climate
• Greening of Streaming

Video's share of online emissions

"My estimate for video streaming is 0,19g of CO2 per hour, while the Shift Project calculated that video streaming emits 400g of CO2 per hour. That's about 1,000 more!" François Zaninotto ref

In other words, estimates vary:

• Audio and video takes up 63% of web's footprint: https://www.climatecare.org/resources/news/infographic-carbon-footprint-internet/
• [[Shift Project]] – 400g/hour of video (https://theshiftproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/2020-06_Did-TSP-overestimate-the-carbon-footprint-of-online-video_EN.pdf)
• 80% of the web's bandwidth is used for video; while the web and devices accessing it make up an estimate 3.7% of global emissions (The Shift Project), more than airlines.
• G Kamiya, IEA – 36g/hour of video / 0.077kwh https://www.iea.org/commentaries/the-carbon-footprint-of-streaming-video-fact-checking-the-headlines
• [[DIMPACT]] – 88-93g CO2e – viewing over streaming, cable and satellite platforms used a mean of 0.17–0.18 KWh per device-hour (88–93 gCO2e) while terrestrial broadcast used a mean of 0.07 kWh (36 gCO2e). https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195925521001116?via%3Dihub
• Carbon Trust & Netflix - 55g CO2e / hour in Europe - https://prod-drupal-files.storage.googleapis.com/documents/resource/public/Carbon-impact-of-video-streaming.pdf. Dimpact used the same methodology to put worldwide CO2e at under 100g.

How is it calculated?

There are many different calculations for the CO2 intensity per MB of video shared online raning by a factor of up to 100. Why do they differ so much? [[Digital CO2 analysis]] is hard to calculate because it depends on many factors:

• the CPU intensity in generating and serving the media;
• where the content is served from, what [[CDNs]] is being used.
• where the content is served to;
• the delivery network it (may) use;
• the device it is loaded on (a significant percentage of the footprint depends on whether it's streaming to smart phone, flat-screen TV or something in between);
• the transfer protocol (1gb of streaming uses less energy that 1gb downloaded).

And that's without considering

• the embedded footprint in the production of the media. There are a number of media industry [[Sustainable filmmaking initatives]] looking at this
• the embedded footprint of all the technology from server, through the network to delivery.
• the behavioural impact footprint of the media's message (e.g. a one minute burger commercial vs a 90m minute climate-change focussed documentary; Top Gear vs a David Attenborough). Sustainable certifiers Albert, now require (tho don't monitor) an 'editorial content' question during certification.
• the compulsiveness of the media – 60 hour series stack or short film?