Earthday.org Responsible Streaming
earthday.org
Issue 59 | June 2021
Agency
Hjaltelin Stahl, part of Accenture Interactive
Creative Team
Chief Creative Officer Adam Kerj Senior Creatives Tim Pashen, Lasse Vintersbølle, Karl Kristian Krarup Kjaer, Nicolai Dimon Digital Creatives Mads Clausen, Line Kirstine Torp, Rasmus Frandsen
Production Team
Director Simon Robson VO Michelle Monaghan Additional Animation Mighty Nice
Other Credits
Group Client Director Søren Brix Senior Account Manager Sofia Brockenhuus-Schack Group Digital Director Jacob Benzon Influencer Marketing Robert Preuss Senior Social Specialist Mads Husted
Date
April 2021
Background
Climate change is a pressing issue today and carbon emissions are one of the main contributors. Now consumers are spending more time online than ever before, Earthday wanted to throw light on the carbon footprint of video streaming in HD.
Idea
The problem isn’t streaming itself, it’s when and how it is done. Scientists at the UK's Royal Society say streaming Ultra HD on a phone generates up to eight times more emissions than Standard Definition (SD)1. So, avoiding streaming in unnecessarily high resolution helps save emissions. And, on smaller mobile screens, the viewer can barely notice the difference.
The idea was to reposition SD as the environmental choice by giving it a new name and branding.
Introducing Earth Definition, with reduced file sizes from HD.
At the same time, Earthday.org urged the big players in streaming to make a small design change to their video players, simply by adding a green ED next to the 480p setting, and auto-playing videos on mobile devices in Earth Definition.
To launch the initiative, a video with a low digital carbon footprint was made.
Animated, to avoid crews, actors and travel to locations, the film used a restricted colour palette to use fewer pixels and draw less energy from the screen.
The low-emission website has a cleaner footprint score than 82% of all web pages on the internet, by eliminating all colour images and disabling the auto play of the film.
Results
The PR results were: 197 pieces of coverage reaching an estimated 7.2 million people.
The film was launched on ‘Earth day’ via live stream to approximately 10 million viewers. Influencer shares and 66 social shares reached around two million people.
Our Thoughts
Earthday isn’t condemning people for watching cat videos or Netflix boxed-sets.
Just suggesting that when you watch on a small screen you can watch with a smaller pixel stack. Nor are they wagging a finger at Netflix, who have declared they want to reduce their impact. When you think that the average American is streaming content for eight hours a day (IndieWire) or that 1.8 million smartphone users around the world stream an average of 16-minutes a day to their phones, the CO2 involved becomes substantial and every little reduction can end up making a big difference.