The digital world is evolving rapidly, constantly adapting to new user behaviors. Streaming services have long established themselves as a key channel for content consumption. Whether it’s binge-watching series on platforms like Netflix or live-streaming events, the demand for on-demand, high-definition content is higher than ever.

This shift toward digital streaming technologies is driven by consumers' desire for greater flexibility in content usage. However, as consumer preferences change, the technologies enabling these services must also evolve. This involves not only ensuring a seamless user experience but also managing the energy demand of such services sustainably.

The Hidden Cost of the Streaming Boom
An overwhelming 99% of U.S. households now subscribe to at least one or more streaming services, spending an average of three hours and nine minutes a day or almost 21 hours a week streaming digital media, according to a Forbes Home study.

For most consumers, the impact of binge-watching their favorite shows on global CO2 emissions is at most a passing thought. Yet, when the growing worldwide energy consumption of streaming is added up, the scale becomes evident. A study by the Hamburg-based Borderstep Institute estimates that streaming produces between 100–175 grams of CO2 per hour—roughly equivalent to driving a small car one kilometer. Meanwhile, the independent think tank Shift Project has calculated that these emissions could account for over 7% of global greenhouse gas production by 2025.

The primary source of these emissions is data centers and their energy consumption, which power the delivery of videos from the cloud to users' living rooms. What many consumers don’t realize is that streaming involves storing content—such as videos or audio—on specialized "streaming servers." These servers compress the data into small packets and send them in real time to the user's device upon request – a very energy intensive process.

Modernizing Outdated Servers to Make Streaming More Efficient
Reducing the carbon footprint of data centers requires regular evaluations of the processors in use. The average server upgrade cycle currently exceeds five years, leading to increasingly outdated and inefficient infrastructure in data centers. This is insufficient for data-intensive and popular workloads like streaming, significantly contributing to the carbon footprint of content delivery services.

One way to reduce power consumption—and thus CO2 emissions—in streaming is to implement energy-efficient processors in data centers. Modern energy-efficient solutions, like those from Ampere®, can cut power usage by up to 80% compared to traditional systems. This is both economically and ecologically beneficial—for content delivery providers and society at large.

With streaming only growing in popularity, and with other massive workloads like AI using more and more energy on the grid, the time has never been better to refresh outdated systems. By thinking more carefully about how we power this growing workload, we can pave the way for a more sustainable digital future.