Does it take less carbon to buy a DVD, go to rent a physical DVD (6 mile round-trip for me), or stream it on an XBox?

So the question above was sent in via Facebook from a student and it got me thinking so I have done a bit of research and thought I'd write some of it and some thoughts down:

Now this first thing that this is actually quite a complex question. in terms of carbon implications there are many levels at which this could take... Do we look at the simple means of energy used for playing a DVD over streaming online?, Do we add the carbon for the car trip (or is it a different form of travel)?, Do we add the embedded carbon for the DVD, Xbox or even the mode of transport? As you can see not that simple!!

Therefore it is very difficult to come up with a definitive answer on the exact question but we can say some things about the different ways which you can get and watch films.

Here is some of what I have found out:

Lets start with shopping: Online VS Physical Shopping

The first question we could ask is what is better for the environment buying products online or popping into town to pick them up? my searches kept stumbling back to an article from AskPablo which is a website where Pablo Paster tries to answer questions similar to that posed in this blog. One such question came up on online verses in person shopping, the blog quite clearly states that "The lesson in all of this is that mail order is more efficient than driving your personal vehicle (unless it’s a bike)".

Therefore we would say that buying a DVD online and having it sent to you would use less carbon, if you are using a personal vehicle to travel to pick up the film.


Streaming VS Sending in the Post

With more services offering DVDs through the post and streaming online there have been a number of writings on the issue of which is greener/environmentally friendly. This question has be raised in relation to Netflix, where it has been calculated that the to send out the fist Billion DVDs by this company world wide was 320 tons of CO2. This is compared to sample figures for a trip of 5km to pick up a single DVD at a time in an average car would take 3,540,000 tons of CO2.


There was a paper released by the University of Massachusetts, which takes a more academic approach to the question. The findings of this paper stated that "the non-energy optimized streaming of a movie through the Internet consumes approximately 78% of the energy needed to ship a movie, but has a carbon footprint that is approximately 100% higher. However, by taking advantage of recently proposed “greening of IT” techniques in the research literature for the serving and transmission of the movie, we find that the energy 
consumption and carbon footprint of streaming can be reduced to approximately 30% and 65% respectively of that of shipping."

We can then say that streaming, with modern technology, such as highly rated energy efficient TVs and other technology, would use less carbon than having DVDs sent to you through the post.

A note on the rigor of these articles!

The information posted above does show that different ways of getting entertainment on to our screens have different carbon implications however it is also important to remember that this is a very complex issue and has many points which can be pulled apart but is meant to be a guide. For some of the criticisms of these kind of articles check out this blog which makes some good points.


Does it take less carbon to buy a DVD, go to rent a physical DVD (6 mile round-trip for me), or stream it on an XBox?

Going back to the original question, it might be able to give an idea as to the nest options. If the above conclusions are taken as correct then to buy a DVD uses more CO2 than having one sent to you, whether that would be after buying it or renting it. It can also be said that streaming generates less CO2 than sending a DVD through the post, as long as modern technology is being used to stream the film. Therefore at a quick look into the different research and opinions out there is would suggest that watching a film on your XBox would generate less CO2 than buy a DVD.

Hope this help and goes someway to answering you question! If anyone else has any questions they would like answering please let us at c-change know and we will try to get you an answer!!