<https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/dec/12/tiktok-carbon-footprint>
TikTok’s annual carbon footprint is probably larger than that of Greece, according to a new analysis of the social media platform’s environmental impact, with the average user generating greenhouse gases equivalent to driving an extra 123 miles in a gasoline-powered car each year. Estimates from Greenly, a carbon accounting consultancy based in Paris, place TikTok’s 2023 emissions in the US, UK and France at about 7.6m metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) – higher than those associated with Twitter/X and Snapchat in the same region. TikTok has 1 billion users worldwide and Greenly’s findings placed its carbon footprint just above Instagram’s – even though Instagram has nearly double TikTok’s user base. The reason behind this lies in the unique addictiveness of TikTok’s platform. The average Instagram user spends 30.6 minutes on the app a day. Meanwhile, the average TikTok user spends 45.5 minutes scrolling. “The whole algorithm is built around the massification of videos,” explained Alexis Normand, the chief executive of Greenly. “Addictiveness also has consequences in terms of incentivizing people to generate more and more [of a carbon] footprint on an individual basis.” Given that the US, UK and France make up just under 15% of TikTok’s global user base, the platform’s overall carbon footprint is likely around 50m metric tonnes of CO2e. And since these data center calculations do not include other smaller sources of TikTok’s emissions, such as the emissions associated with office spaces and employee commuting, this is likely an underestimation. For context, Greece’s annual carbon emissions for 2023 were 51.67m metric tonnes of CO2e. TikTok’s users also have the second-highest emissions per minute of use on social media according to Greenly’s analysis, just after YouTube. One minute on TikTok will burn 2.921 grams of CO2e, on average, while one minute on YouTube will burn 2.923 grams. One minute on Instagram burns 2.912 grams. The small differences add up. Due to the sheer amount of content on the platform, as well as longer average scroll times, TikTok users have the highest yearly emissions. The average TikTok user will burn 48.49kg of CO2e on the app in one year, according to Greenly’s analysis. In second place comes YouTube, with an average user burning 40.17kg of CO2e. Instagram users will burn just 32.52kg of CO2e. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, that’s the difference between driving a gas car driving 123 miles (TikTok), 102 miles (YouTube) and 82.8 miles (Instagram). The study examined the carbon footprint associated with each user per minute by incorporating the emissions associated with data centers, which made up about 99% of the footprint, and the emissions associated with charging devices after using the platforms. TikTok’s emissions are the most opaque of the social media platforms. Tech giants such as Meta and Google release detailed reports to the Carbon Disclosure Project every year, even posting their findings to their respective websites. TikTok has no publicly available emissions data. Other social media companies, while also reporting sky-high emissions, have made commitments to power their data centers with clean energy. The quality of these commitments varies widely. An investigation by the Guardian showed that four of the five top tech companies were using offset-like renewable energy credits (Recs) to underreport their emissions data by approximately 662%. TikTok has made a commitment to be carbon neutral by 2030. The company has a plan called “Project Clover”, implemented in 2023, that is tasked with meeting this goal while enhancing overall data security. However, only one renewable data center has been built to date: a €12bn facility in Norway that runs on 100% renewable energy. It is unclear whether or not these reporting practices and commitments will persist under new ownership – a US appeals court has upheld a law that will require Chinese firm ByteDance to sell the platform to a non-Chinese entity by 19 January 2025, though the firm is trying to delay this until a recently friendlier Trump administration is inaugurated. If the platform is bought by a US company, rules passed this year would require the firm to publicly disclose its emissions if they are “material” to investors, though Trump will probably reverse this. TikTok did not respond to request for comment.
