NAB
The chief culprit
of carbon emissions is widely thought to be the airline industry but a new
white paper suggests that global video entertainment is actually worse for the
planet.
article here
An average day of
filming generates more than one person’s annual carbon footprint, claims anew
whitepaper investigating sustainability in video entertainment. An average hour
filming is equivalent to the carbon footprint of a return flight from London to
New York, it reveals.
The white paper, “Sustainability
in Video Entertainment,” released by InterDigital and written by Futuresource
Consulting, explores the reasons why the video entertainment industry must lead
on positive climate action, set higher standards when it comes to energy
efficiency, and integrate solutions that mitigate energy consumption across the
video chain.
The carbon
footprint for production is immense. Even medium-sized films have an average
carbon footprint of 769 metric tons of CO2e, with large films generating
creating 1,081 metric tons per production.
In addition to
reducing material waste and promoting recycling on set, there are many more
approaches that film production can adopt to make the process more sustainable.
Accurate
measurement of one’s carbon footprint is a crucial component and certification
from BAFTA’s Albert, EcoProd’s Carbon Clap initiative, the Production Guild of
America, and the Digital Production Partnership (DPP), among others, helps
encourage people in the video industry to make a positive change. However, the
reports notes, there are still no standardized measurement, which creates
difficulties in creating a holistic approach to calculate carbon emissions
across the industry overall.
Another way of
cutting down on production carbon output is to use virtual production. One
study quoted in the paper discovered that filming vehicle shoots in virtual
production could reduce CO2 emissions by between 85% and 90% compared to
conventional filming.
The move towards
more sustainable film and TV production has accelerated a transition to
cloud-native workflows. That’s an improvement since cloud technology consumes
20% of the energy footprint of on-premises data centers if running the same
workload, per the report.
Live broadcasting
has made efforts to become more sustainable — such as remote working — but more
needs to be done. The highly expensive carbon footprints of OB trucks can be
offset if the industry moves towards more modular solutions. This means
provisioning only the equipment needed for specific broadcasts, reducing energy
needed for transporting and generating it all onsite.
OB trucks can also
achieve greater flexibility by using IP networks, by using electricity or
biofuels, rechargeable battery units or simply being EVs.
However, it is the
delivery/consumption component of video entertainment that seems to burn the
most energy.
More than a billion
hours of content is consumed on a single streaming platform every single day,
the white paper states, and as a consequence the video streaming industry’s
annual carbon footprint now exceeds that of the airline industry.
Meanwhile, global
TV energy usage alone could increase 5% by 2026 as consumers upgrade to higher
resolution screens and transition to 4K HDR video.
According to the
white paper, the carbon footprint of streaming video depends heavily on how
data centers source their electricity, and how efficiently they run servers and
networking equipment, which in turn contributes toward CO2 emissions.
“With more
investment in renewable energy to power data centers, the environmental impact
of video streaming isn’t growing as fast as it was previously,” says Simon
Forrest, principal technology analyst at Futuresource Consulting. “However,
more must be done; it is increasingly likely that the efficiency gains of
current technologies may be unable to keep pace with growing data demand. To
reduce the risk of rising energy use and emissions, investments in efficient
next-generation computing and communications technologies are needed, alongside
continued efforts to decarbonize the electricity supply.”
The paper contends
that energy-aware streaming protocols promise more than 50% in energy savings
per hour of content.
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