An astonishing new study has claimed that TikTok’s annual carbon footprint is greater than most social media platforms and probably greater than that of Greece. An average user of the short-video app was generating greenhouse gases equivalent to driving an extra 198 kilometres in a gasoline-powered car each year, according to estimates from Greenly, as published by the Guardian. The ByteDance-owned company has emerged as one of the world’s most popular social media platforms in recent years, primarily due to its short video content and highly engaging algorithm.
The platform’s heavy reliance on video streaming has made it one of the more energy-intensive platforms, contributing to a substantial environmental footprint. The carbon accounting consultancy, based in Paris, placed TikTok’s 2023 emissions in the US, UK and France at about 7.6 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) which is higher than X (formerly Twitter) and Snapchat in the same region.
However, given that the US, UK and France make up just 15 per cent of TikTok’s global user base, the overall carbon footprint of the platform is likely around 50 million metric tonnes of CO2e. Comparatively, Greece’s annual carbon emissions for 2023 were 51.67m metric tonnes of CO2e.
“Behind every social media post or video is a vast digital infrastructure, powered by data centres and servers that consume significant amounts of electricity. Much of this electricity is still derived from carbon-intensive sources such as coal, oil, and gas, meaning that each digital action contributes to global carbon emissions,” the report noted.
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TikTok’s addictiveness
The reason for TikTok’s increased carbon footprint has been linked to its addictiveness with daily users spending an average of 45.8 minutes per day on the platform. The report added that one minute on TikTok burns 2.921 grams of CO2e while one minute on YouTube burns 2.923 grams. One minute on Instagram burns 2.912 grams.
“The whole algorithm is built around the massification of videos. Addictiveness also has consequences in terms of incentivizing people to generate more and more [of a carbon] footprint on an individual basis,” said Alexis Normand, the chief executive of Greenly.
TikTok refuted the study’s findings with a spokesperson telling Fortune that ByteDance’s 2023 total carbon emissions, covering all operations beyond TikTok, were less than 20 per cent of the estimated emissions by Greenly.