Emissions possible: Streaming music swells carbon footprints

London, United Kingdom – In July 2017, Despacito, a popular reggaeton hit from Fonsi and Daddy Yankee, became the most widely streamed record of all time, with a version featuring Canadian superstar Justin Bieber helping the tune to more than 4.6 billion plays since it was released in the January of that year. “IT can provide a platform to decarbonise other areas of society too, such as in transport, where technology can replace flights or travel to conferences, but there’s a role for those companies to be carbon neutral or even carbon negative.” There are also worries around hardware – touch screens, cables, and so on – that may not be sustainably produced or disposed of, contributing further to the carbon footprint of certain technologies. “But there are so many moving pieces and factors, so people don’t necessarily understand their consumption and their carbon footprint.” Bashroush suggests a couple of quick fixes – such as downloading a song to your local device instead of streaming music from a distant server – but also asserts that might not be enough. “There’s no incentive for anyone to do so.” Streaming companies make money from Fans of online TV and music are not necessarily aware that their consumption habits have such a direct relationship to greenhouse gas emissions, or even that they create a carbon footprint at all. “You wouldn’t buy a lightbulb without knowing how many watts it was using, so companies need to be raising awareness and they need to be more transparent.” EU legislation has specified that servers in data centres must fit certain parameters but, other than a few cursory attempts, there is little regulation globally around the carbon footprint of streaming technologies.