According to Laura Marks, professor at Grant State University and co-author of the paper “Streaming Media’s Environmental Impact”, the fast-growing streaming industry lies on a massive infrastructure of data centers, networks, and devices, including computers, phones, and smart-TVs, and is responsible for 3-4% of the global carbon footprint.
These impressive numbers, which are rising fast despite efficiency measures, are behind MainStreaming’s move to become and be certified as a Carbon Neutral company.
MainStreaming, the leading company for live video streaming delivery at scale, supported by United Ventures, Indaco Ventures, and Sony Innovation Fund, has developed its own proprietary technology, offered as a managed private edge service, to help content owners, rights holders, and broadcasters overcome the challenges of live streaming at scale. By deploying dedicated infrastructure as close as possible to the end user, the technology is optimized for both live and on-demand and can run applications on the edge. A significant step forward for the industry indeed.
“Traditional CDN infrastructures were simply not designed with live content in mind, so we’ve completely reimagined the approach from the ground up, focusing on how video should be delivered, not to make the best out of legacy technologies” said Antonio G. Corrado, Founder and CEO of MainStreaming. “While developing our technology, sustainability has always been a key point for us” Corrado continued.
With content owners and broadcasters seeing increased pressure to move large audience to the internet while lowering energy usage in the value chain to meet sustainable production targets, creating a more efficient solution was a key differentiating factor in MainStreaming’s EDGE video delivery network development, thus leading to a more efficient and cost-effective solution.
“At MainStreaming, we thought we needed to take a step forward”, Antonio G. Corrado said, “and so we are particularly happy to announce to be the first video delivery network to be certified carbon neutral, with the certification released by ClimatePartner. In addition, we will be sustaining a couple of projects, concretely following the SDG principles of the United Nations.”
“We have been very happy to support MainStreaming, as streaming is one of the fastest growing industry and it definitely is the future. And we are working together for a greener, better future” Giorgio Bertolini, Climate Partner Country Manager.
This step is particularly relevant as MainStreaming EDGE network is one of the largest across Europe, having handled almost 4 million concurrent users, backing up some of the most relevant players in the content streaming industry, DAZN, RAI, SKY.
“We are delighted with the achievement of MainStreaming. Innovation and environmental respect are a winning mix”. This was the statement of Robin Oakley, VP Distribution Engineering, DAZN.
MainStreaming is one of the founding partners of Greening of Streaming, an organisation with international reach, created to address growing concerns about the energy impact of the streaming sector. The aim is to bring the industry together, to help create joined up thinking around end to end energy efficiency in the technical supply chain underpinning streaming services.
