Beyond buzzwords: Measuring real environmental impact in broadcasting

Despite growing climate concerns globally, environmental responsibility remains a low priority for much of the broadcast and streaming sector. While sustainability is increasingly present in marketing copy and vendor pitch decks, actual efforts to measure and reduce carbon emissions often lack rigor and standardization.

“It’s not that companies don’t care,” said Simon Parkinson, managing director of Dot Group. “It’s that they don’t measure carbon footprint as well as is needed. Currently, this is still too often a manual ‘checklist’ based method. The data captured and ensuing actions are slow, incomplete and sub-optimal.”

That data gap isn’t just a technical shortcoming but a larger barrier to change. Without accurate metrics, it’s nearly impossible to verify impact, incentivize reductions or build credible strategies.

“Reporting, unfortunately, often relies on estimates based on spending, rather than a usage-based approach with actual measurements,” said Kristan Bullett, CEO of Humans Not Robots. “This creates a situation where real optimizations and reductions aren’t properly reflected.”

A growing footprint, hidden in plain sight

The scale of the problem is increasingly difficult to ignore. A 2025 report from InterDigital and Futuresource Consulting found that streaming accounts for 4% of global carbon emissions, double that of the aviation industry. The figure reflects energy use across the entire video value chain: from production to delivery to playback on devices.

Per the report, each hour of film production equates to roughly 16.6 metric tons of CO₂, or the annual energy use of two homes. High-profile events like the 2024 Paris Olympics had estimated media-related footprints of over 600 million tons of CO₂, with 1.25 terawatt-hours of electricity consumed from viewing alone.

Scope 3 emissions — the indirect emissions from travel, catering, and post-production — remain the largest blind spot for media organizations. Parkinson stressed the importance of allocating emissions data to individual productions and their vendors, noting, “the full production lifecycle carbon footprint needs to be captured and allocated accurately.”

Data infrastructure and cultural inertia

While European broadcasters have taken more concrete steps, including a new measurement initiative by the BBC, Sky, Channel 4 and others that will track the presence of climate-related content, adoption in the U.S. remains inconsistent.

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“In the U.S., the focus on energy independence and fossil fuel extraction has grown,” said Bullett. “Meanwhile, European broadcasters and telcos are prioritizing sustainability, emphasizing ‘measure, measure, measure.’”

A 2024 survey from Sony Europe noted cultural and organizational inertia across the industry.

While 73% of respondents said their company had made some sustainability improvements, fewer than half said their employer was actively investing in it. Among the top barriers: financial constraints (47%), outdated mindsets (41%), and the lack of available sustainable products (28%).

Parkinson believes that reliance on outdated manual reporting tools is part of the problem.

“Platforms that require human entry of data will never be real-time nor pinpoint accurate,” he said. “Automated monitoring of virtual machines and cloud environments provides the minute detail necessary for meaningful optimization.”

Technological solutions are emerging.

Cloud-based workflows, for instance, allow broadcasters to scale energy use to match production demands.

“Historically, production infrastructure ran at peak capacity all the time,” said Jason O’Malley, senior partner solutions architect at Amazon Web Services. “Now, we can provision resources just for live events and release them immediately afterward.”

From awareness to accountability

There’s growing consensus that solving the sustainability challenge isn’t just about hardware or facilities, it’s about data. Real-time, production-specific measurement is increasingly seen as key to unlocking both environmental and business benefits for broadcasters.

“Unless reductions are captured and reflected in reporting, there’s no incentive to change,” Bullett said.

Parkinson added that better data doesn’t just drive optimization, it creates internal alignment and external credibility.

“Sustainable practices signal innovation and ethics,” Parkinson said. “They also open doors to new sponsorship opportunities with environmentally focused brands.”

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Still, the industry’s structural challenges shouldn’t be overlooked. As Sony’s Olivier Bovis noted, “Beyond the financial aspect, we found a change in mindsets is what most needs to take place… Sustainability should be considered a currency used to implement changes.”

Without better measurement, sustainability remains easy to talk about — and easier still to sideline.