Cover story
Cover story
Is streaming keen on green?
Global streaming is big and getting bigger, so any environmental impact it has will grow unless steps are taken to mitigate them. The footprint is now being recognised, measured and ameliorated, not least because major players seek to enhance their green credentials.
calls it the WattLab, says“ the latest WattLab hackathon analysis provides empirical insights into the energy implications of resolution and bitrate decisions, offering the kind of devicelevel understanding the industry has lacked until now.”
Measure up
The REM takes data from each element of the delivery chain and renders into a consumption metric applicable across the chain, i. e. the consumption in kWh.
The motivation to develop REM was particularly driven by wanting to understand the‘ hidden’ carbon cost – the consumer about bringing down the consumption of this most hungry part of the streaming food chain are, perhaps reassuringly, prosaic.
Dim and Dimmer
Dim the lights while watching: Lowering ambient lighting while watching content is a simple yet powerful action. REM data shows that display energy consumption can drop by as much as 50 per cent in optimal conditions when users dim their room lighting. This works because screens adjust brightness to match the surrounding environment; darker rooms require less screen illumination. Streamers could educate subscribers on this
In order to deal with a problem, the first thing you need to do is measure it. So, how big is the carbon footprint of streaming? Well, there’ s been no shortage of colourful attempts to define it, mainly along the lines of‘ watching an hour of Netfilx( it’ s always Netflix) is the equivalent of …. Boiling three kettles, driving three miles, flying to Paris …( from where?)” Not all that helpful.
Carbon currency
An organisation called Greening of Streaming, GoS, has been on to this for a few years, its mission statement is:“ We believe in a sustainable streaming industry that delivers the best user experience without compromising our planet,” and it has a commitment to‘ no greenwashing’.
It recognised early that a key ingredient to driving change was a common currency for measuring the carbon impact of streaming, a way to measure absolute and comparative performance of streamers, networks, CDNs, codecs in power consumption. Its answer is the Remote Energy Management Platform. Developed through a series of‘ hackathons’ the platform is“ the first industry tool providing actual measured energy data across the streaming workflow, moving beyond the modelled estimates that have historically dominated the discussion.”
To support this shift toward measurable impact, the group has reorganised its activities into a lab-based structure, each focused on a specific dimension of streaming sustainability, including measurement, policy, communication, and technical standards. The lab responsible for the REM Platform, it
8 EUROMEDIA device is routinely tagged as being responsible for 70 %+ of the power consumption for a stream, and yet the consumer device is the most difficult part of the chain to measure.
When it was unveiled in 2024, Greening of Streaming said:“ Until now, consumer device energy data has primarily been theoretical, typically based on extrapolated lab tests. The industry group’ s REM initiative changes the game by facilitating large-scale, real-world measurements. For the first time, the GoS initiative allows for the measurement of energy as it relates to streaming, at scale, and from actual consumer settings.”
“ GoS’ s REM is fully operational at the screen device end, capturing TVs’ energy consumption across multiple sites …. We are thrilled with our preliminary results; they confirm REM’ s robustness,” said GoS Working Group lead Ben Schwarz.
Two years later the conclusions drawn
“ We believe in a sustainable streaming industry that delivers the best user experience without compromising our planet”
through user interface prompts, eco-mode settings, or onboarding tips— helping viewers make simple choices that reduce energy use without compromising experience.
Upgrading a device: The environmental choice between keeping or replacing a device depends on two key factors: how much energy it consumes, and how clean the local electricity grid is. If a user has an older, energy-hungry device and lives in a region powered by fossil fuels, upgrading to a modern, efficient model can result in immediate environmental benefits. For example, replacing a 500-watt TV