Earth Notes: General Bibliography (stephens2021streaming)

• [stephens2021streaming] Andie Stephens and Chloe Tremlett-Williams and Liam Fitzpatrick and Luca Acerini and Matt Anderson et al. Carbon impact of video streaming (accessed 2025-01-07), The Carbon Trust, The Carbon Trust, 2021-06, PDF (report) (BibTeX).
  abstract

  At an individual level, the carbon footprint of viewing one hour of video-on-demand streaming (approximately 55gCO2e in Europe) is very small compared to other everyday activities. The viewing device is typically responsible for the largest part of the overall carbon footprint. Changes in video quality, such as moving from high-definition to standard-definition, affect the bitrate required to transmit video data, but were found to have only a very small impact on carbon emissions. Improvements in technology mean that network equipment required to deliver the internet is continually becoming more energy efficient and, coupled with increased procurement of renewable electricity, the carbon intensity of ICT services over time are expected to drive down.
  note

  [Quote: "... the internet transmission and the home router use much the same energy whatever the data volumes are ..." though the power model in Figure 24 includes a small variable component for data centres and core networks and access networks; eg core power = 1.5W + 0.03 W/Mbps, access power = 5W + 0.02 W/bitrate%.]