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The ripple effect: Netflix counts on scale to push supplier emission cuts

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The streaming giant has promised to be net zero by the end of 2022

Emissions reporting is a contentious subject when it comes to climate transparency. While reporting on Scope 1 and 2 (direct and indirect) emissions has been mandatory in the UK for some time, reporting on Scope 3 - that is, emissions as a consequence of your business's actions - is still optional.

Scope 3 emissions are, as might be imagined, much more difficult to assess than Scope 1 or 2. But that hasn't stopped some forward-thinking companies from looking at them as they seek to reduce their carbon footprint.

Netflix sustainability officer Emma Steward spoke to James Murray, editor of our sister site Business Green, about the company's targets at the recent Net Zero Festival, which include Scope 3 plans.

The streaming giant has its own internal targets for emission reduction, which are "on a trajectory in line with what climate science says is needed in terms of reducing the global carbon budget." The company is accompanying that with "a net zero commitment [by end-2022] that means we will compensate for any residual emissions, including a vast inclusion boundary of our Scope 3, and do so with high-quality carbon credits - all within about a year and a half."

Currently only about a fifth of the Fortune 2000 have a net-zero target, and even then most fail to include Scope 3 emissions. Netflix, however, has made net zero a priority, and any of its self-branded productions will be included in the net zero target.

Like most businesses though, measuring Scope 3 emissions presents a significant challenge. Steward explained:

"Streaming is really made up of three phases: one is the [third-party] datacentres, which are included in the net-zero target boundary; a second phase is internet provision, which of course happens very locally, through thousands of internet service providers around the world; and the third is the device you watch it on, whether it's a TV or a mobile phone or something else.

"We teamed up with other streamers and broadcasters in a group called DIMPACT, which is led by a technical team at the University of Bristol, and we collected and measured, for the first time, the carbon impact of streaming, which was quite poorly understood until recently. And then The Carbon Trust, that venerable UK thinktank, did their own whitepaper on the subject called The Carbon Impact of Video Streaming. What we came to understand was that the majority of emissions actually lie with the use of the device.

"What we've committed to, even though internet service provision and the devices are not officially Netflix's emissions under the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, we're engaging with device manufacturers to encourage them to include use-based emissions in their own climate targets."

Later on, Murray delved further into why Netflix felt the need to take such a difficult and radical step - but to find the answer, you'll need to watch the video for yourself.

We will discuss issues around sustainability, emissions and transparency at Computing 's Tech Impact Conference, coming in 2022.

The ripple effect: Netflix counts on scale to push supplier emission cuts

The streaming giant has promised to be net zero by the end of 2022

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