Footballer Cristiano Ronaldo has millions of followers on Instagram. In 2020, with 240 million followers, an average Instagram post by Ronaldo used as much energy as 10 UK households in one year. Why? Because the further an image travels, the more energy it consumes.
Today Ronaldo has more than 666 million followers…
Social media platforms have huge digital infrastructures powered by data centres and servers. These require electricity, much of which comes from fossil fuels.
We can see this in the US. Fossil fuels play a big role in energy production, so social media platforms generate higher aggregate emissions.
Facebook generates approximately 107.43 million kg of CO₂e each year in the US. That’s the same annual carbon footprint as 6,800 people.
With so many people using social media platforms, every picture and video adds up to have a big collective impact on the planet.
Data centre emissions for social media platforms
Based on the number of users for each platform, greenly estimates that these are the annual data centre emissions per platform for the UK only:
| Platform | Annual emissions (kg Co2e) |
|---|---|
| YouTube | 1,731 million |
| 1,211 million | |
| TikTok | 917 million |
| 1,076 million | |
| X | 510 million |
| Snapchat | 384 million |
| Threads | 110 million |
“Facebook and LinkedIn are leading the pack in taking responsibility for their carbon footprint and in supporting the environmental education of their users.”
[Source: Sustainability mag]
Change behaviour
However, social media can also be a powerful behavioural change tool in promoting sustainable lifestyles. A study by Unilever found that social media is one of the most influential sources for information on sustainability. Influencer content can make people change their behaviour for the better:
- 78% say social media is most likely to encourage them to act more sustainably, much more so than TV documentaries (48%), news articles (37%) and government campaigns (20%)
- 82% were encouraged to act after watching content about food waste reduction from Hellmann’s
- 76% of people polled were encouraged to act after watching content from Dove about reusing plastics.
Social media platforms ranked
What about when it comes to the social media companies themselves? Sustainability mag ranks the top 10 social media sites adopting renewable energy as:
- Snapchat
- Netflix
- TikTok
- YouTube
Facebook and LinkedIn are leading the pack in taking responsibility for their carbon footprint and in supporting the environmental education of their users.
[Source: Sustainability mag]
How you can help
- Use social media as a tool to inform and inspire followers about sustainable living
- Post content only on appropriate platforms. If you don’t have the resources or the volume of followers to make TikTok/X/YouTube etc worth it, then don’t post. Consider closing redundant or ineffective accounts down
- Post content according to a content plan and strategy. Every post should be useful or engaging for your followers
- Unfollow accounts that aren’t useful or valuable (from both your personal and business social media accounts)
- Consider the value versus the impact of following celebrities or organisations with huge social media audiences
- Consider the medium: text has the least environmental impact, an image has more, a video has the most. Use the smallest file sizes you can.