Social media platforms come with an “often overlooked environmental cost”, with video intensive sites such as YouTube and TikTok responsible for enough greenhouse gas emissions for a small country, says a new report by carbon accounting consultancy, Greenly.
Every digital action has carbon consequences
Looking into the environmental impact of companies like Meta (the owner of Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp), Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube, the Greenly research compared the carbon footprint associated with each platform’s user per minute.
The analysis also took into account each company’s statements and actions on sustainability, the energy it takes to process and store data, as well as the different types of data that dominate each site, the energy consumption involved in individuals using and recharging the devices used for scrolling, such as mobile phones or laptops, and even the source of energy in various countries, whether fossil-fuel based, “clean” or renewable.
“Behind every social media post or video is a vast digital infrastructure, powered by data centres and servers that consume significant amounts of electricity,” the report notes. “Much of this electricity is still derived from carbon-intensive sources such as coal, oil, and gas, meaning that each digital action contributes to global carbon emissions. This hidden environmental impact, driven by both companies and their users, has become a growing concern in the context of climate change.”
TikTok’s algorithm and video content make its users huge emitters
TikTok was found to be one of the worst emissions culprits. The average user spends 45.8 minutes per day on the platform, driven by an additive algorithm that keeps users on the platform for a full 15 minutes longer than on Instagram, for example. Worse still, while on the platform, users are watching high-energy consumption video content, gobbling up 15.81 mAh per minute, which is 50% more per minute than X’s 10.28 mAh per minute.
As a result, even though TikTok has fewer users in the US than X, it emits 176,059 kg CO₂e in daily emissions – significantly more than X’s 101,675 kg CO₂e. Even YouTube, another video streaming site with more than double TikTok’s users, does not put out double the emissions.
Given that the US, UK and France make up just under 15% of TikTok’s global user base, the platform’s overall carbon footprint is likely around 50 million metric tonnes of CO2e. For context, Greece’s annual carbon emissions for 2023 were 51.67 million metric tonnes of CO2e, according to the International Energy Agency.
“High engagement times and multimedia content, particularly video, drive up emissions, making platforms like TikTok some of the most environmentally impactful,” the report says. “Encouraging users to adopt less energy-intensive behaviours, such as reducing time spent on video-heavy platforms or limiting video autoplay features, can help reduce the carbon impact of social media.”
What about corporate action?
As well as actions users can take on an individual level, such as reducing video content and being selective about which device they use, corporate responsibility must be taken, the report notes. Since Elon Musk’s takeover, X has gone quiet on an environmental commitment to become carbon neutral in all its data centres by 2022, but hope remains. Meta has invested in renewable energy to the extent it is now one of the largest buyers of renewables in the world and has saved over 16.4 million metric tons of CO2e emissions since 2021. And TikTok has established a 100% renewable-run data centre in Norway as a vanguard for its goal to go carbon neutral by 2030.
