The environmental cost of sending the same bits 100 million times
The Inconvenient Truth About Your Netflix Habit
Every time you press play on a live stream, you’re not just watching—you’re contributing to an environmental footprint that rivals entire countries.
The streaming industry generates 306 megatons of CO2 annually—equivalent to the total yearly emissions of Spain. And here’s the uncomfortable reality: most of that pollution is completely unnecessary.
The Numbers That Should Alarm You
According to the International Energy Agency, one hour of streaming generates approximately 36-55 grams of CO2—the equivalent of driving your car for 222 meters.
Doesn’t sound like much? Now multiply that by billions of hours streamed daily.
The Super Bowl Problem
When 100 million people tune into the Super Bowl via streaming, here’s what actually happens:
- 100 million separate streams are created
- Each stream is identical—same bits, same pixels, same everything
- CDN servers around the world duplicate the content 100 million times
- Total redundant data transmitted: ~450 petabytes
That’s 99,999,999 wasted copies of identical content.
The carbon footprint of that single event? Over 10,000 kg of CO2—equivalent to driving a car around the Earth’s equator.
Why Traditional Streaming Is Inherently Wasteful
Traditional streaming uses “unicast” delivery—one stream per viewer. Every viewer requires their own dedicated connection, their own copy of the data, their own slice of server resources.
The Server Farm Reality
To serve 1 million concurrent viewers via unicast, you need:
- 5,000-20,000 edge servers actively running
- Each server consuming 500-800 watts
- Total power draw: 1-4 megawatts continuously
- Per hour electricity: 1,000-4,000 kWh
- CO2 emissions: 400-1,600 kg per hour
And that’s just for ONE million viewers. Major events attract 10, 50, even 65 million concurrent viewers (Netflix’s Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson fight hit 65 million streams in November 2024).
The Data Center Paradox
The streaming industry loves to tout its efficiency improvements: better compression codecs, more efficient server hardware, renewable energy data centers, AI-optimized routing.
But here’s what they won’t tell you: All these improvements happen at the data center level. The fundamental waste happens on the network.
It doesn’t matter how efficiently Netflix encodes a video if they’re still sending 65 million separate copies over the internet. The network duplication is where the real waste occurs.
What If There Was Another Way?
For 70 years, broadcast television has delivered content to millions using a simple principle: send once, receive many.
A TV station transmits one signal. Whether 10 people or 10 million people tune in, the transmission is identical. Zero marginal cost per viewer. Zero additional environmental impact per viewer.
Multicast: Broadcast for the Internet
The same principle can work over IP networks. It’s called multicast. The environmental math changes completely:
| Metric | Unicast (1M viewers) | Multicast (1M viewers) |
|---|---|---|
| Streams created | 1,000,000 | 1 |
| Network load | 8,000,000 Mbps | 8 Mbps |
| Servers active | 5,000-20,000 | ~10 |
| Power consumption | 1-4 MW | 10-50 kW |
| CO2 per hour | 400-1,600 kg | 4-20 kg |
That’s a 99% reduction in environmental impact.
The Green Streaming Revolution
The streaming industry is at an inflection point:
- Traffic is exploding: Video traffic doubles every few years
- Resolution is increasing: 4K is standard, 8K is coming, VR requires even more
- Efficiency gains are slowing: Moore’s Law has stalled
- Climate pressure is mounting: Net-zero commitments require action
The current trajectory is unsustainable. We cannot 10x video traffic while meeting climate goals using unicast delivery.
The SmartCast Approach
At Viewcast, we’ve built exactly this. Our SmartCast technology:
- Delivers one stream that serves unlimited viewers
- Uses existing ISP infrastructure for last-mile distribution
- Achieves 97.5% reduction in delivery costs—and proportional CO2 reduction
- Makes sustainable streaming economically viable
It’s not theoretical. DanceTV runs on SmartCast today, serving global audiences with a fraction of the environmental footprint of traditional CDN delivery.
The Choice Is Clear
Every streaming executive, every content provider, every platform has a choice:
Option A: Keep using unicast. Keep sending redundant copies. Keep building server farms. Keep buying carbon offsets. Hope nobody notices.
Option B: Adopt multicast architecture. Reduce waste by 99%. Make streaming sustainable. Lead the industry forward.
The technology exists. The economics work. The only question is whether the industry has the will to change.