From Email To Video Streaming: How Our Online Actions Impact Our Environment

Our life is fuelled by the internet more than ever before. From answering emails to getting work done, gaming with friends or watching our favourite show, we do it all online.

And our reliance on the internet has increased tenfold due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and how it has locked us all inside our homes, turning the internet from a luxury people had at homes to a necessity -- much like electricity or water.

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And sure, it has made our lives convenient -- allowing us to work from home, or shop from our phones and more -- but what many people fail to recognise is that even the simplest activities that one conducts online has a massive impact on the environment.

Impact of streaming video

During the lockdown when we missed going to movie theatres, most of us turned to streaming platforms to watch the movie or show of our choice. Some watched on their phones while some watched on their high-resolution 4K TVs, embracing the crazy crisp detail with the spike in resolution. But all this is also impacting the environment at an exponential rate.

A report published by Germany's Federal Environment agency looked at the amount of carbon dioxide produced by data centres (where streaming platforms store the content), and by network terminals.

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According to the data, streaming video over fiber optic cables results in the lowest amount of CO2 emissions ¡ª 2 grams per hour. Using copper cables produces twice that amount, while 3G mobile technology results in a hefty 90 grams of CO2 per hour.

Now, this might be seeming quite a little, but this is happening by millions of people trying to binge their favourite show or movie, every hour. Doesn¡¯t seem that small now, does it?

Casual web browsing

If you thought streaming videos online could generate a ton of carbon emissions and sharing and texting on social media won¡¯t, you couldn¡¯t be more wrong. According to Climatecare.org, every time you search for something random on the internet, it emits around 0.2 to 7 grams of CO2.

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If you translate this to around 50 queries in a day, over the year it produces 26 kilograms of CO2 per year. And according to InternetLiveStats, Google processes 40,000 queries every second. The carbon footprint of an email can range from 4 grams to 50 grams.

Gaming

Gaming, whether on PC or consoles, is huge. A report by Newzoo estimated that one-third of the population in the world likes to play video games. And while we already know that it takes a toll on electricity consumption and by extension, carbon emission (24 MT/year of associated carbon-dioxide emissions in the US alone, equivalent to that of 85 million refrigerators or over 5 million cars), gaming also consumes power through its online infrastructure, allowing players to play with others online while even saving their saved data online.

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Ubisoft, one of the world¡¯s largest game developers (known for game franchises like Assassin¡¯s Creed, Watch Dogs, Tom Clancy and FarCry), generated 518 metric tons of CO2 in 2018 through its data centres -- a 19% increase year over year.

However, with cloud gaming gaining traction, with platforms like Google¡¯s Stadia, Microsoft¡¯s xCloud or even Amazon¡¯s Luna cloud gaming will exponentially increase the power consumption on data centres, since each platform is promising 4K-60fps gameplay and that requires some serious firepower. Sure one could think that people buying less consoles would mean less waste and less power consumption, right? Not really.

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A study conducted by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory energy researcher Evan Mills, a cloud gaming setup would consume 17 percent more energy overall. A device like Chromecast that runs Stadia takes 10-watt to power up, but to run games, it can use an extra 520 watts of power in the network and data centre - much higher than a local desktop PCs. Moreover, a console, on average, uses 156 percent more energy when cloud gaming compared to playing the game locally.

It all comes down to data centres

Whatever we do on the internet -- whether it's posting images on Instagram, streaming a video on YouTube or playing a game, all the data is connected through a data centre. In case you didn¡¯t know, a data centre is a massive complex full of computers that store data and help users connect and consume content.

A single data centre can consist of thousands of computers laid on racks that are constantly helping people stay connected. This means that they¡¯re constantly consuming a whopping lot of electricity.

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Moreover, these systems are running on their full potential 24 hours, seven days a week to keep things running smoothly. This means that they¡¯re bound to generate heat, and to cool them down, these data centres are loaded with heavy-duty HVAC setup to keep things chill, which contributes to more energy consumption. In fact, 40 percent of the total power consumption of a data centre is consumed to cool it.

And with rising users and services, the number of data centres are on an exponential rise too. An IDC report highlights that the number of data centres rose from 500,000 in the year 2012 to whopping 8 million in 2019 and its power consumption doubles every four years.

Attempts to be eco-friendly

While data centres continue to rise and consume massive amounts of electricity, several conglomerates like Google, Apple, Alibaba and Microsoft are now using greener methods to run their data centres. Google for example is using a combination of renewable energy and carbon offsetting to reduce the carbon footprint of its operations. 100 percent of the electricity consumption of our global operations with renewable energy for the second consecutive year.

Microsoft

Microsoft has been striving to switch to 100 percent renewable energy since a while now. It also recently announced that they¡¯re aiming to eliminate our dependency on diesel fuel by 2030. Moreover, they¡¯re testing ways to cool down data centres without requiring a ton of energy by dumping one of their data centres underwater, and it worked too!

Alibaba too is using a similar approach where it is pulling out lake water and passing it through the data centre to reduce the temperature inside, ensuring a cooler operation. But despite all these efforts, carbon emissions will continue to rise.

How can you help reduce this impact?

While this is a massive problem, it starts with simple solutions that can be implemented by us, the users to create a considerable impact. Something as simple as clearing out unwanted emails from your inbox can clear a ton of space in data centres, eliminating the need for further expansion.

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Similarly, healthy streaming habits such as limiting stream quality to 480p on smartphones could reduce the data and bandwidth consumption, and indirectly reduce carbon emissions.

Yes, we all understand that we can't live without the internet, we are too plugged into its benefits and convenience. But we need to be increasingly be aware of how our online activities -- from sending an email to starting a co-op gaming session, from watching a streaming video to backing up photos on the cloud, and more -- directly impact our environment at large, and do our own bit to help the situation for the better.