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Study of the environmental impact of audiovisual use in France
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Arcom and Arcep, in collaboration with ADEME, have jointly launched an assessment of the environmental impact of different audiovisuel broadcasting methods.
Presentation conference
The study was presented at Arcom headquarters on Monday, October 7, in the presence of Roch-Olivier Maistre, Chairman of the French regulatory authority for audiovisual and digital communication,Arcom, Laure de La Raudière, Chairman of theFrench regulatory authority for electronic communications, post and press distribution,Arcep, and Baptiste Perrissin-Fabert, Deputy Director General of the FrenchAgency for Ecological Transition,ADEME.
Watch the conference presentation below.
All in video
Audiovisual use in France has the same environmental impact as...
4 million private cars.
But what are audiovisual uses?
Equipment, networks, data centers...
They have ecological consequences throughout their life cycle.
What is the environmental impact of audiovisual use in France?
First and foremost, it has a carbon impact of 5.6 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent, equivalent to around 1/3 of the total carbon impact of the digital sector.
Audiovisual uses are responsible for 0.9% of France's total carbon footprint... And almost 3% of French electricity consumption.
How can this be explained?
It's the manufacture of equipment that has the biggest footprint.
At this rate, by 2030 we make provision for... 30% increase in "greenhouse gas" emissions from audiovisual use.
The solutions: eco-design and sobriety measures to reduce carbon impact, especially for video-on-demand.
To find out more, Arcom and Arcep, in collaboration with Ademe, have published for the first time an assessment of the environmental impact of audiovisual use in France.
Find out more on arcom.fr.
Our ecodesign notices for service providers
The manufacture of terminals accounts for a predominant share of the impact of audiovisual use, across all indicators. Ecodesign can help extend their lifespan, in particular by ensuring that the service can be used on older terminals while retaining appropriate performance (backward compatibility).
Although terminals are responsible for the majority of the environmental footprint of audiovisual uses, all the different building blocks that make up these uses are interdependent (equipment, networks and data centers). Minimizing the resources mobilized over the entire life cycle therefore makes it possible to reduce the associated environmental footprint, as well as limiting the indirect effect of usage on terminals and infrastructures.
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The attention economy model favors a growth in usage that may conflict with the objective of sobriety required of audiovisual services. Limiting attention-grabbing strategies and providing users with the levers they need to act on their usage will enable us to adopt a reasonable level of consumption, favorable to both the environment and digital well-being.
To find out more, browse the notice resulting from article 26 of the REEN law, which aims to encourage television services, on-demand audiovisual media services and video-sharing platforms to inform their users of the environmental impact linked to the consumption of their services.
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The publication of information on a service's environmental footprint is helping to improve transparency for professionals and users alike. To facilitate this transparency, ADEME, together with Arcom, Arcep and INRIA, are developing a "Référentiel par Catégorie de Produite" (RCP) "audiovisuel services", aimed at defining the rules for carrying out an LCA assessment of an audiovisual service. Publication is scheduled for the end of 2025.
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For more information on ecodesign measures, we invite audiovisual and digital services to browse and take advantage of the Référentiel général de l'écoconception des services numériques(RGESN), published on May 17, 2024 by Arcep and Arcom, in collaboration with ADEME, DINUM, CNLI and INRIA.
Study summary
English version
Download the complete study
Study of the environmental impact of audiovisual use in France
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Study on the environmental impact of audiovisual uses in France
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