August 18th, 2009
Eco-ears: Why downloading your music from the Internet is inherently more green
Someone, somewhere in Apple’s Cupertino headquarters is kicking themselves for not thinking of jumping on this theme first: Intel and Microsoft have published a whole bunch of case studies and scholarly analyses that look at the various impacts of technology-enabled habits and processes on the environment.
One of the first behaviors to get scrutinized in reports published at this link is buying music online. Turns out that buying online is greener MOST of the time, even with the energy and emissions associated with the massive data centers necessary to drive these services. Depending on the alternative, the reduction in energy and carbon dioxide emissions could be between 40 percent and 80 percent, according to the report
The report, which you can find at this link, covers six different scenarios of buying music including:
- An album published on CD and delivered according to traditional retail methods
- An album on CD delivered by light-duty truck and shipped from an online retailer
- An album on CD delivered by express air through an online retailer
- An album downloaded as MP3/MP4 files and downloaded for digital playback
- An album downloaded as MP3/MP4 files and burned to CD-R for digital and CD use
- An album downloaded as MP3/MP4 files, burned to CD-R and stored in individual CD packaging
The only scenario that MIGHT use less energy than online downloads is if a customer walked to the store to pick up his or her CD. And there are certain file transfer sizes, once you hit about 260 megabytes, where the energy use for downloading gets higher.
The reason that I buy a lot of my music online really has nothing to do with how I want to play it. It’s more because the type of music I listen to alot, a cappella singing, isn’t exactly front of shelf in music stores. But it sure is nice knowing that my musical buying preferences might be inherently better for the earth.
All of this musing does not take into account, of course, the actual THINK you use to play your music, whether it’s an old-fangled stereo, your computer or some digital media gadget.
The rest of the papers commissioned by Intel and Microsoft and authored by Yale visiting professor Jonathan Koomey can be found at this link. The other two papers posted at this link right now have to do with mobile devices and server efficiency.
Heather Clancy is an award-winning business journalist in the New York area with more than 20 years experience covering the high-tech industry. See her full profile and disclosure of her industry affiliations. See her full profile and disclosure of her industry affiliations.
Subscribe to GreenTech Pastures via Email alerts or RSS.
