Video streaming has come a long way from the days of poor video and audio signals.

With services like Netflix, Amazon and Hulu taking off and more channels creating their own platforms, video streaming grows more popular by the hour. 

But is video streaming hurting the environment?

Streaming services use energy, and their devices, network infrastructure and data centers contribute to carbon emissions, but some experts argue the climate impact of video streaming isn’t a major concern compared to other industries.

Modern technology has provided improvements in energy efficiency for video streaming. However, experts caution new technology like artificial intelligence, and blockchain could have environmental impacts.

Approximately 54% of people in the world use the internet, and the output of that use accounts for 3.7% of global greenhouse gasses, NASDAQ reports.

The Shift Project, a carbon transition think tank, predicts those emissions will double by 2025, and the pandemic could have fueled that growth.

Last year, Netflix subscriptions grew 20% and electricity consumption rose 84%, NASDAQ reports. Video traffic on mobile networks is also growing 55% each year.

Cloud-game streaming has shown to have a larger carbon footprint, but companies like Playstation are working to limit this through energy-efficient supplies and equipment.

A U.K. startup, iSIZE, is working to optimize video streaming quality while reducing bitrate requirements "allowing for a significant reduction in data and energy consumption," Techcrunch reports.

Could improved video-compression technology be the solution?

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