Author: James Longley
Big lights and fame: How to reduce your carbon footprint as a media business
Save more nowBig lights and fame: How to reduce your carbon footprint as a media business
Save more nowWe all love to consume when it comes to the media. In a world where we are given more choice than ever before and the competition among media outlets has gone truly global, what can be done by the industry itself to mitigate what some are already warning is a huge problem when it comes to sustainability and what is becoming a huge carbon footprint?
As we’ve mentioned in an article recently published on Forbes, it is commendable that the likes of the University of Bristol have commissioned studies that will point to the contributory factors alongside institutions like the BBC, ITV and TalkTalk. The study will effectively map the carbon footprint of digital services in the advertising, publishing and broadcasting sectors are difficult as a result of “hugely complex” underlying technological systems, including delivery networks, data centres, web infrastructure and user devices.
The digital economy will no doubt keep growing and the media is one of the main proponents of this kind of growth. Indeed, reports suggest that the tech economy grows at around 2.6 times the rate of the rest of business.
Streaming, live feeds, TV on demand and rolling news are nothing new, but as more innovations are taking place, this kind of bandwidth required and the associated energy needed will no doubt increase at a faster rate in order for everything to progress as audience demand dictates.
There’s plenty that can be done in general to reduce your carbon footprint, indeed there are a plethora of articles out there suggesting just how.
However, when it comes to the media, practicalities need to be taken into account. When it comes to an overarching strategy for what can be an energy-guzzling behemoth of an industry, will small changes be enough, or will absolute culture change be needed? It remains to be seen. Here’s a few ideas of how those in the media can help reduce their carbon footprint:
For SMEs, controlling output of emissions, sourcing responsibly and becoming more aware of environmental impact is much easier. More tracking, measuring and awareness of policy is possible and therefore a carbon footprint can be tangibly reduced in smaller steps and with more immediate effect. This might include:
What might be good for SMES may not work in the same way as for larger entities such as the BBC, Netflix and larger concerns. In the wake of the issues surrounding climate change in recent years and a turn in the corporate world towards sustainability, it is interesting to see the media taking this seriously.
There are many ways in which the media can start to make changes. The biggest we would suggest is culture. With corporations that are fixed, more permanent entities, this is easier to implement. With the transient, often fleeting nature of advertising, television, film and news work, this is harder to nail down.
There’s a real issue with news corporations in general, with so much international travel and multiple offices across the world, the idea of a carbon footprint being reduced is a tough one to crack.
Where a news corporation can crack this is sourcing reporters closer to the action, rather than sending correspondents whenever they have the opportunity. In businesses where air travel is an element of the day-to-day, this can be a real killer. More than 50% of a company’s carbon footprint can be burned up with air travel and so anything that can be done to reduce this is welcome news.
Elsewhere, the impact made by the media can be as simple as turning around productions, making as little environmental impact as possible. Film production totals so much use of energy that something must be done to feed back to the locations that are stricken by the physical and often long-lasting effects of location filming.
Again, the media needs to address this problem of culture. If each and every strand of the often extended supply chain can be made carbon neutral or at least reduced, then overall, the industry will have a better reputation and will perform better.
Sourcing energy is obviously somewhere any corporation down to the smallest of SMEs can address right away. There are measures you can take to either source from sustainable producers of energy, or at least maintain some sort of supply chain loop whereby you deliver excess energy back to the grid. To not at least investigate these options seems irresponsible.
At the moment, environmental policies dictate very hopeful and well-meaning ideas, but until the wider industry takes on more responsibility and we see action rather than hot air, it may well remain an endemic problem.
In general, the media have a lot of responsibility to be seen to be acting on such issues, the difference is, the ones that actually make a stand and become standard-beaters for this movement will be the ones that make the most impact. Sustainability is no longer the buzzword it once was, it is a segment of business reality.
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