By Philippe Wetze

Most folks don’t realize that the Internet contributes more than 3.7 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

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Within that, video represents over 80 percent of the traffic that flows through this global network which is growing rapidly at about 25 percent per year. A similar dynamic is taking place over enterprise networks, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. A tremendous amount of video traffic is being managed by IT departments. This is why tracking the impact of digital video consumption across the business ecosystem is becoming increasingly important.

Meanwhile, the number of screens consumers use — at home and work — is also multiplying at an astonishing rate. With all these devices, there is an increase in video and encoders to handle the exploding demand for video content, driven by the growth of video-heavy social applications — TikTok and WhatsApp, to name but a few. These factors drive high demand for encoders and decoders.

It is in this context that it is important to focus on the details of video technology. Encoders, for instance, consume significantly more energy than decoders – sometimes as much as 5 to 10 times as much energy, in comparison.

In the past, there was an asynchronous relationship between these two categories of technology. Most video content was created — and encoded — by a much smaller percentage of the population compared to those who consumed