The cost of the cloud - Vol 5 Sneak Peek

Everything feels accessible online, but does that come at a huge carbon cost? Megan Claire Routbort tells us more about how much that one more true crime episode before bed really costs our planet…

Article by: Megan Claire Routbort

Artwork by: Caitlin Noble

You settle down in front of your laptop after a long day at work and open a few tabs: Facebook, The New York Times, Netflix. You don’t intend to do more than a few minutes of browsing, but the algorithms are oh-so-good and a banner ad for a buzzy new streaming show appears. You click play, blink, and suddenly it’s 2 a.m. You’ve just watched eight hours of the trashiest reality TV possible, frying more than a few brain cells — but what about the planet? 

Here’s the good news: taken in isolation, your personal usage of streaming, data storage, ChatGPT — all the building blocks of our modern, hyper-connected way of life — have a comparatively minimal carbon footprint. According to Netflix’s 2022 Environmental, Social & Governance Report, the total carbon footprint of streaming one hour of video is approximately 55g CO2e (grams of carbon dioxide equivalents). 

So let’s say you’re awash in trash-tv-ridden regrets, and you swear to only stream those eight hours for the week — no more screeching singles searching for love for you! But the next week, and the next, you repeat. Problem? Doesn’t seem like it! You’ve now streamed 22.88kg CO2e for the year. Under a fair-share global carbon budget allocation, you have an annual 2 tonnes of CO2e to spend; your Netflix habitis using up just over 1% of your allocated emissions (but 7% of your waking hours). 

But here’s the problem: carbon compounds. Imagine every single person on earth is watching eight hours of Netflix a week. It’s a stretch, but no doubt the type that would have tech CEOs salivating — just think aboutthe rapturous levels of value created for shareholders! Let’s estimate a global population of 8.1 billion and take the assumption that 36 billion metric tonnes of CO2 are currently emitted annually (yes, we stand dramatically above the global carbon budget target). (22.88 kg CO2e x 8.1 billion) / (36 billion metric tonnes CO2e) = 0.5% 

Half a percent may not seem like much, but take a minute to contextualise this theoretical number against the backdrop of global annual greenhouse gas emissions, by sector. We’re boiling the planet by powering homes, moving people and goods, supporting industry and manufacturing. Currently, many of the benefits of these life-sustaining functions are not shared equally around the world. 

Why do all this hypothetical maths, anyway? We may not be 8.1 billion strong streaming Netflix (there are an estimated 2.9 billion people who don’t even have access to the Internet) but in an environmentally-just society, we could be. But the main point is to illustrate that it’s extremely complicated to unpack the real cost of the cloud. Calculations are murky at best, relying on cascading sets of assumptions: number of users, hours online, gigabytes downloaded, and services leveraged. Netflix provides us with their popcorn-quippy, don’t-worry-about-it figures for streaming services, but what about the variegated other functions that fall under the ominous, jargon-y umbrella of the cloud: artificial intelligence, Amazon Web Services, machine learning, podcasting, bitcoin mining, TikToking? With no one global carbon accounting standard, we can’t pin a big black number on the board and be done with it — but The Shift Project estimates that the impact from cloud computing ranges from 2.5 to 3.7% of global GHG emissions — more than emissions from commercial aviation. 

Should we give up flygskam (flight shame), then, and digital detox in the name of reducing our individual impact? Not necessarily.

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