{"id":37479,"date":"2025-04-22T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-22T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cloudinary.com\/blog\/?p=37479"},"modified":"2025-04-18T15:03:57","modified_gmt":"2025-04-18T22:03:57","slug":"earth-day-hidden-environmental-cost-internet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cloudinary.com\/blog\/earth-day-hidden-environmental-cost-internet","title":{"rendered":"This Earth Day, Let\u2019s Talk About the Hidden Environmental Cost of the Internet\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When Earth Day comes around, the more environmentally active among us may go out and plant trees or join a clean up crew and head off to pick litter in local parks or nearby beaches. Those slightly less engaged may make this the Earth Day they switch to using a reusable water bottle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For those of us in the tech space, we either have that once-per-year chat about what we need to operate more cleanly or assess how our policies and investments in clean tech are paying off. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every scroll, stream, and download we either use ourselves or deliver to our end-users requires energy. Storage of images and videos is a particularly heavy consumer of energy. The data centers storing and powering all this activity consume about 1-1.5% of the world\u2019s electricity.<\/a> To put that in perspective, 1% of global electricity consumption (~270 TWh) is roughly equivalent to Spain’s annual electricity generation<\/a>, and 1.5% (~406 TWh) surpasses Australia’s annual consumption<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So this Earth Day, we\u2019re asking those of us who operate in the world of image and video: What can we do to shrink our carbon footprint?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Make Planet-Saving Optimization a Thing<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

At Cloudinary, we help brands deliver visually engaging digital experiences at scale. Just as important, we help them do it in a way that\u2019s energy-efficient and environmentally responsible. Here\u2019s how:<\/p>\n\n\n\n