Streaming Carbon Footprint
Tackling the Carbon Footprint of Streaming Media
Streaming media is calculated to contribute a surprising 1% of global greenhouse gases, because most regions of the world obtain electricity from fossil fuels to power their data centers, networks, and devices. Streaming large files in large quantities, then, ethically implicates spectators in the warming of the planet. Bad news 鈥 but we have some solutions!
Our research addresses the high and rising electricity consumption of information and communication technologies (ICT), which consume as much as 7% of global electricity (Andrae 2020). Given that globally about 79% of electricity comes from fossil fuels, this means that ICT is responsible for 3.3% to 3.8% of global greenhouse gases (Belkhir and Elmeligi 2018, Cisco 2020b, Bordage 2019).
Streaming media 鈥 video on demand (e.g. Netflix, Crave), porn, YouTube, games, video conferencing, etc. 鈥 contributes more than any other sector to this increase (Cisco 2020). People are streaming video at higher volumes and higher definition, and media and telecom corporations cheerfully encourage us to do so for entertainment and relief. Meanwhile, what we might call 鈥渟treaming impact denial鈥 plays into the notion that online media are 鈥渧irtual鈥 and do not impact the environment.
Unchecked, the carbon emissions resulting from ICT could exceed 14% of the 2016-level worldwide GHGE by 2040 (Belkhir & Elmeligi 2018, The Shift Project 2019). It is urgent to immediately reduce that figure, and the rising share of streaming media, through education and policy changes.
Our Research Findings
Our research project, supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Knowledge Synthesis grant program, 鈥淟iving within the Earth鈥檚 Carrying Capacity," is complete. Please read the and download the PDF of the full report. It's a gripping mystery story set in the labyrinthine world of ICT engineering! Includes recommendations for consumers, telecoms, governments, and more.
Our group is on it!
We:
- Critically assess engineering research on the environmental impact of ICT and streaming media, identify the most reliable results, and develop streaming media energy usage and carbon footprint calculator
- Measure the electricity consumption involved in streaming media through case studies in British Columbia, and produce tools to accurately calculate its carbon footprint
- Inform policymakers of the most promising policies and practices at governmental, institutional, and individual levels
- Adhere to an open, reproducible science philosophy
- Advocate alternatives to HD streaming, on fronts including carbon taxes for streaming services; simple alternatives like watching television and borrowing DVDs; and low-bandwidth streaming media
- Teach media makers how to make small-file videos, with and tips
- Share the beauties of appropriate technology through the
Small File Media Festival
The Small File Media Festival, featuring movies under 5 megabytes each, shows that great cinema doesn鈥檛 have to mean great big files! Every year we receive scores of submissions from around the world, with ingenious creative solutions including animation, GIFs, low frame rates, datamoshing, executable files, 鈥渙bsolete鈥 technologies, and creative compression.
For more info and to keep up with all Small File Media Festival events and activities, please visit .
The is:
- Sophia Biedka 鈥 independent filmmaker
- Kim Cleroux 鈥 filmmaker and SFU undergrad
- Mena El Shazly 鈥 multimedia artist and SFU grad student
- Joey Malbon 鈥 media artist, musician, and activist
- Laura U. Marks 鈥 festival founder and SFU professor
- Radek Przedpe艂ski 鈥 Dublin-based scholar and artist
- Faune Ybarra 鈥 visual artist and SCA alumnus
CALL FOR WORK!
The Small File Media Festival is calling for work for their 2024 edition, with a deadline of June 15, 2024. Here's the call:
Media artists and eco-activist friends, give us a HIGH FIVE! It鈥檚 the Small File Media Festival鈥檚 fifth anniversary! Since 2020, we鈥檝e been raising awareness about the environmental impact of streaming media. We challenge media makers to intervene in the 4K dystopia of bandwidth imperialism by creating original small-file movies of any length, proving once again that small files are THE sustainable cinematic avant-garde. If you鈥檝e made it, you can submit it 鈥 as long as it鈥檚 no more than 1.44MB per minute. More .
Past Festivals
Fourth Annual Small File Media Festival
October 20 鈥 21, 2023
The Cinematheque 鈥 1131 Howe Street, Vancouver
Small File Media Festival 2022
August 8 鈥 14, 2022 | Djavad Mowafaghian Cinema, Djavad Mowafaghian World Art Centre & SCA Media Lab (GCA Room 2345)
SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, 149 W. Hastings St., Vancouver
Small File Media Festival 2021
August 10 鈥 20, 2021 | Online
Small File Media Festival 2020
August 10 鈥 20, 2020 | Online
Best practices
We've prepared a collection of downloadable Best Practices PDFs for helping to manage your online carbon footprint.
- Recommendations for all
- Best practices for individuals
- Best practices for organizations and institutions
- Best practices for media platforms
- Best practices for service providers
- Best practices for networks and data centers
- Best practices for manufacturers
- Recommendations for governments
Streaming carbon footprint publications, talks, and media appearances
Our research is partially funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council鈥檚 program
Publications
- 2022/3 鈥 Dawn Walker and Yani Kong, 鈥淩eimagining Networks: Speculative Thinking for Low-Carbon Research Networks,鈥 Low-Carbon Research Methods, Ed. Pasek, Anne, London, UK: Goldsmiths College, Forthcoming.
- 2022 鈥 Stephen Makonin, Laura U. Marks, Radek Przedpe艂ski, Ramy El Mallah, Alejandro Rodriguez-Silva, 鈥淎 Holistic End-To-End Model to Calculate the Carbon Footprint of Streaming Media,鈥 LIMITS 鈥22. .
- 2022 鈥 Laura U. Marks and Radek Przedpe艂ski, 鈥淭he Carbon Footprint of Streaming Media: Problems, Calculations, Solutions,鈥 in Film and TV Production in the Era of Accelerated Climate Change, ed. Pietari K盲盲p盲 and Hunter Vaughan (Basingstoke: Palgrave, forthcoming).
- 2022 鈥 Laura U. Marks, 鈥淟arge-File Streaming: An Unsustainable Pleasure,鈥 in What Film Is Good For, ed. Julian Hanich and Martin Rossouw (Berkeley: University of California Press, forthcoming)
- 2021 鈥 Laura U. Marks, 鈥淎 Survey of ICT Engineering Research Confirms Streaming Media鈥檚 Carbon Footprint,鈥 Media + Environment. .
- 2021 鈥 Laura U. Marks, Stephen Makonin, Alejandro Rodriguez-Silva, and Radek Przedpe艂ski. Final report, Tackling the Carbon Footprint of Streaming Media, SSHRC Knowledge Synthesis grant. 58 pages.
- Full report (PDF download)
- Full report (PDF download)
- 2021 鈥 Laura U. Marks and Radek Przedpe艂ski, 鈥淏andwidth Imperialism and Small-File Media,鈥 in Post-45, special issue on 鈥淣ew Filmic Geographies鈥 ed. Suzanne Enzerink. .
- 2021 鈥 Yani Kong, 鈥淭he Digital Turn: Keeping Art Accessible in a Time of Crisis,鈥 Galleries West, December 2021. .
- 2020 鈥 Laura U. Marks, Joseph Clark, Jason Livingston, Denise Oleksijczuk, Lucas Hilderbrand, 鈥淪treaming Media鈥檚 Environmental Impact,鈥 Media + Environment. Read HERE.
- 2020 鈥 Laura U. Marks, 鈥淪mall-File Movies: Saving the planet, one pixel at a time,鈥 Millennium Film Journal 71/72 (Spring/Fall): 94-101.
- 2020 鈥 Laura U. Marks, 鈥淪treaming video, a surprising link between pandemic and climate crisis,鈥 Journal of Visual Culture and Harun Farocki Institut special issue on Covid-19. .
- 2020 鈥 Laura U. Marks, 鈥淟et鈥檚 Deal with the Carbon Footprint of Streaming Media,鈥 Afterimage 47:2, 46-52. .
- 2020 鈥 Yani Kong, 鈥淭iny movies at the end of the world,鈥 SFU School for the Contemporary Arts. Read HERE.
- 2020 鈥 Radek Przedpe艂ski, 鈥淭he environmental cost of binge-watching,鈥 Science Gallery, Dublin. .
Panels, roundtables, symposia, and talks
- 2022 鈥 Azadeh Emadi, Joseph Malbon, Laura U. Marks, and Radek Przedpe艂ski, 鈥淏ending the possible (one pixel at a time): Small-file ecomedia for the Anthropocene,鈥 pre-recorded panel, ISEA 2022. .
- 2022 鈥 Laura U. Marks and Radek Przedpe艂ski, 鈥淪mall-File as Ahuman Life. Sustainable Experimental Ecomedia for the Anthropocene,鈥 plenary talk at Life Infinite: Immanence, Inflection, Indeterminacy, fifth Deleuze and Guattari Studies in India conference. November 13. By videoconference.
- 2022 鈥 Yani Kong, 鈥淓xamining the Carbon Footprint of Streaming Media in Online Teaching and Learning,鈥 Pacific Institute of Climate Science, University of Victoria, Video Conference, February 2022.
- 2021 鈥 Laura U. Marks and Radek Przedpe艂ski, 鈥淎 Contribution to the Critique of the Carbon Footprint of Streaming Media. Earth鈥檚 Carrying Capacity as a Regime of Capital in the Postdigital Age.鈥 Talk on the panel 鈥淐apital, Nature, Infrastructure鈥 at the conference Many Regimes of Capital in the Postdigital Age, University of Warsaw. October 20. By videoconference.
- 2021 鈥 Yani Kong (chair), Laura U. Marks, Radek Przedpe艂ski, and H芒n Ph岷, roundtable, 鈥淚mmaterial Material: The Carbon Footprint of Online Teaching and Learning,鈥 UAAC, October 22. By videoconference.
- 2021 鈥 Laura U. Marks and Stephen Makonin, "Let's Get Together with a Small Carbon Footprint," talk for Pacific AIDS Network on best practices for organizations. May 27. By videoconference. .
- 2021 鈥 Laura U. Marks and Radek Przedpe艂ski, 鈥淭ackling the Carbon Footprint of Streaming Media: A Transdisciplinary Laboratory for New Media Informatics.鈥 New Materialist Informatics 2021. March 24. By videoconference.
- 2021 鈥 Laura U. Marks, 鈥淪treaming media populate the ether and heat the planet,鈥 talk on the panel 鈥淓xpanded Environments II,鈥 Society for Cinema and Media Studies. March 21. By videoconference.
- 2021 鈥 Yani Kong, 鈥淧ushing Against the Substitution Effect: Best Practices for Carbon Neutral Streaming in Remote Teaching and Learning,鈥 Burnaby Festival of Learning, Vancouver, BC, April 2021.
- 2020 鈥 Laura U. Marks, Joseph Clark, Jason Livingston, and Lucas Hilderbrand, 鈥淟et鈥檚 Tackle the Carbon Footprint of Streaming Media.鈥 Roundtable. Society for Cinema and Media Studies. April 4. Videoconference organized by SCMS鈥 Environmental Special Interest Group.
Laura U. Marks lectures
- 2022 鈥 A talk on the panel 鈥淥n Greening Film Festivals鈥 organized by Ger Zielinski. Society for Cinema Studies, April 3, 2022. By videoconference. Download the presentation PDF HERE.
- 2022 鈥 A talk on the panel "Compression politics and aesthetics: Mitigating the carbon footprint of streaming media鈥 organized by Marek Jancovic and Judith Keilbach. NECS (European Network for Cinema and Media Studies). Bucharest, June 22, 2022. By videoconference. Download the presentation PDF HERE.
- 2021 鈥 鈥淭ackling the Carbon Footprint of Streaming Media,鈥 in the Sustainability Dialogue series organized by Kevin Lee. Merz Akademie, Stuttgart. November 30. By videoconference.
- 2021 鈥 鈥淭he Small File Media Festival,鈥 talk to the Animation; Experiment collective, hosted by New Media Society, Tehran. April 29. By videoconference.
- 2021 鈥 鈥淪treaming Media, Online Conferences, and the Jevons Paradox,鈥 keynote talk, British Association for American Studies, April 6. By videoconference.
- 2020 鈥 鈥淪eeing in the dark,鈥 keynote talk at 鈥淒ark Eden,鈥 Sixth International Conference on Transdisciplinary Imaging at the Intersections between Art, Science, and Culture. November 6. By videoconference.
- 2020 鈥 鈥淭he Small File Media Festival,鈥 keynote talk at NxtMedia 2020, Trondheim, Norway. By videoconference.
Interviews and media
- 2022 鈥 Laura U. Marks, 鈥淎sk an Online Media Expert: What鈥檚 the Carbon Footprint of the Internet?鈥, told to Alex Tesar, The Walrus, June. Page 66
- 2022 鈥 Laura U. Marks, interview on carbon impact of streaming media with Carolina de Ryk, Daybreak North, CBC radio, Prince Rupert, BC. June 17
- 2022 鈥 Laura U. Marks, 鈥淚s Our Netflix Obsession Harming the Planet? This Is the Environmental Impact of Streaming,鈥 podcast interview with Stephanie Osmanski, Brightly.eco. Listen HERE.
- 2021 鈥 Laura U. Marks, 鈥淢edia Genealogies and Haptic Geographies,鈥 interview in Alex Estorick鈥檚 series 鈥淭he Uncanny Valley,鈥 Flash Art, October 12. .
- 2021 鈥 Laura U. Marks, interview with Michael Hedges on the carbon footprint of streaming media, British Association for American Studies 2021 Annual Conference. June 30. .
- 2021 鈥 鈥淐inema, touch, and the climate movement with Laura U. Marks,鈥 interview on Roz Skillen鈥檚 podcast Catch Yerself On. March. .
- 2020 鈥 Laura U. Marks and Stephen Makonin, 鈥淪treaming video is overheating the planet.鈥 Op-ed, The Vancouver Sun. August 15. .
- 2020 鈥 Laura U. Marks, interview with CBC鈥檚 Gloria Macarenko on the carbon impact of streaming media and the Small File Media Festival. August 10.
Research projects
2022 鈥 Yani Kong, Laura U. Marks, and Stefan Smulovitz, 鈥淓xamining the Carbon Footprint of Streaming Media in Online Teaching and Learning,鈥 Living Lab Initiative, SFU Sustainability, Vancouver, BC, January 2022.
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