Life Cycle Assessment of CO2 Emissions of Online Music and Videos Streaming in Japan

In this study, we analyzed the CO2 emissions of online music and video streaming services, as one of the digital contents, in Japan using life cycle assessment. As a system boundary of online music and video streaming, processes such as data center construction and server manufacturing, usage of communication networks and internet communication technology devices (personal computers (PCs) and smartphones), and disposal of data centers and servers were considered. Data were collected using statistical and online surveys, and CO2 emissions per 1 MB of communication volume were calculated. One of the results revealed that the lifecycle CO2 emissions of listening to online music using PCs and smartphones were 5.88 × 10−4 and 1.43 × 10−4 kg-CO2/MB, respectively. The overall CO2 emissions for domestic music and video streaming services in 2019 was 921 thousand t-CO2. Online video streaming accounted for 87.7% of the total emissions, which corresponded to approximately 0.23% of domestic CO2 emissions derived from electric power generation.