Today, over 5 billion people—roughly 60% of the global population—use the internet, generating more than 3.4 zettabytes (ZB) of data per year. Of all digital activities, video streaming stands out, accounting for over two hours per day per user and more than 60% of total internet traffic.
Streaming is convenient, instant, and everywhere—but its impact isn’t always visible.
Recent research estimates that streaming video now accounts for more than 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions. A peer-reviewed study published in Nature Communications (2024) further found that digital content consumption, especially streaming, can take up to 40% of a user’s annual carbon budget, depending on resolution, device, and electricity mix.
Streaming in 4K, for example, can consume 3 to 5 times more energy than HD. Codec choice, cloud setup, and delivery efficiency all make a measurable difference.
A more conscious approach to Engineering
At Qualabs, we operate at the intersection of video engineering and infrastructure optimization, giving us deep visibility into how architectural decisions affect energy consumption at scale.
In one of our most impactful projects, we supported a high-traffic streaming platform in migrating live encoding workflows from CPU-intensive infrastructure to a hardware-accelerated, energy-efficient setup.
We began with a full diagnostic of the system’s energy profile, identifying key inefficiencies. Based on those insights, we re-architected the pipeline to use low-power, high-throughput accelerators.
📉 Results:
- 70–80% reduction in power usage for encoding tasks,
- Significant drop in cooling requirements across edge and core data centers,
- Up to 40% workflow energy savings during peak concurrency.
Performance remained intact latency, stability and visual quality were maintained. The result was a scalable system with measurable environmental benefits.
Looking beyond carbon: Sustainability includes people
Sustainability isn't only about emissions and energy use. It also means building technologies that are inclusive, equitable, and accessible for everyone.
Engineering with social impact in mind is part of the broader responsibility we hold as creators of digital platforms. Whether it's environmental efficiency or user inclusion, both dimensions are essential to building a sustainable media ecosystem.
Accessibility is impact, Too
Social responsibility in streaming also means making content accessible to every user—regardless of hearing ability, language, or context.
Over the years, Qualabs has delivered advanced Closed Captioning (CC) solutions for global-scale platforms. Much more than enabling captions, these projects involved deep integration across technical, UX, and editorial layers.
Our implementations have included:
- Accurate real-time captioning for live and on-demand content,
- Multi-language support to increase global accessibility,
- Flexible user-side controls for better readability,
- Automated workflows combined with human QA for high reliability.
These features directly benefit users who are deaf or hard of hearing—but they also improve content access in silent environments, crowded spaces, or for those consuming content in a second language.
Incorporating accessibility into core workflows helps platforms reach wider, more diverse audiences—and builds systems where inclusion is standard, not optional.
Looking ahead
The environmental footprint of streaming is not a future problem. It’s happening now subtly, per stream, per user, across billions of devices.
The good news? We can engineer for impact.
Technological decisions, how we encode, deliver, and optimize, can play a real role in reducing emissions and building a more inclusive digital future. At Qualabs, we’re committed to staying conscious of these challenges and helping shape solutions that go beyond performance metrics.
