What is TikTok's carbon footprint?
What an hour of video emits

TikTok's carbon footprint comes to 36 to 64 gCO2e (grams of CO2 equivalent) per hour of video, according to 3 public references on online video (also known as video streaming). That is the equivalent of a car journey of 250 to 450 metres. At 46 minutes a day, the average quoted in the press, that makes 10 to 18 kgCO2e a year, equal to 2 to 3.6 beef meals. These 3 references do not count the same things: 2 count electricity only, the third adds the manufacturing of the devices (embodied emissions), and none of them measures TikTok.

Per minute, a 2023 measurement on a phone puts TikTok 10% above YouTube and Instagram. The total depends mainly on time spent, then on the device and the network, while the share attributable to servers, in data centres, is the least well known.

1How much CO2 an hour on TikTok produces depends on what is counted

The International Energy Agency (IEA) puts online video at 36 gCO2 per hour in 2019, a worldwide average that counts electricity only, for screens that are mostly televisions. The Carbon Trust, a British organisation, arrives at about 55 gCO2e for Europe in 2020, again counting electricity only; its study received funding from Netflix through the DIMPACT project. ADEME (the French Agency for Ecological Transition) gives a reference value of 64 gCO2e in its Impact CO2 tool, which includes the manufacturing of the devices.

The closest measurement for TikTok comes from Greenspector, a French measurement company: 0.96 g per minute in 2023 on a phone over Wi-Fi, or 58 g per hour at that rate (our conversion). The test lasts about 4 minutes and, as Greenspector states, does not reproduce the most common uses.

We reran the calculation for a phone, using the model that ADEME publishes online. 1 hour of video comes to 36 gCO2e in low definition on Wi-Fi (0.7 gigabytes, or GB, of data) and 104 g in high definition on the mobile network (3 GB), phone manufacturing included. We do not know how much data TikTok sends per hour. Our calculation matches the IEA's 36 g, and Greenspector's 58 g in high definition on Wi-Fi, although the methods differ: this is a coincidence.

Over a year, at 46 minutes a day, the 3 references give a range of 10 to 18 kgCO2e, or 2 to 4% of the 434 kgCO2e that digital technology represents per person per year in France according to ADEME. At that rate, it takes 115 to 205 years of video to equal a Paris-New York return flight.

2TikTok, YouTube and Instagram: close per minute in one measurement, YouTube and TikTok far apart in an earlier one

Greenspector gives YouTube and Instagram 0.87 g per minute, against 0.96 g for TikTok. Its 2021 edition, run on a different phone with a different test scenario, showed a ratio of 1 to 5.7 between YouTube and TikTok, so the similarity between the platforms rests on the 2023 edition alone.

We use 46 minutes a day, the average per user quoted in the press at the end of 2024. In the United Kingdom, the communications regulator Ofcom records 28 minutes a day per adult visitor in May 2025, while Similarweb, cited by DataReportal, measures 1 hour 37 minutes a day per user of the Android app worldwide. Depending on the time spent and the reference chosen, a year of video comes to 6 to 38 kgCO2e (our calculation).

3The phone and the network weigh most; the share of the servers is the least well known

For 1 hour of video in high definition on Wi-Fi, our calculation with the ADEME model gives 29 g for the phone, 28 g for the network (home router included) and 0.5 g for data centres, which is less than 1% of the total. The phone's share is almost entirely its manufacturing, which the model spreads over the hours of use: watching 1 hour less does not remove those 29 g, since the phone has already been made. On the mobile network, the network share rises from 28 to 74 g, which is 2.7 times as much.

A study published in October 2024 by Arcom (the French audiovisual and digital communication regulator), Arcep (the French electronic communications regulator) and ADEME also gives data centres little weight: 1 to 3% of the impacts of audiovisual uses in France, depending on the indicator, against 72 to 90% for devices. Its 9 scenarios, 5 for video and 4 for audio, range from 6 to 57 gCO2e per hour, manufacturing included. The IEA and the Carbon Trust put data centres at 5% and 1% of the electricity used by an hour of video.

These shares relate to video alone. For digital technology as a whole in France, ADEME's assessment attributes 46% of the carbon footprint to data centres in 2022, or 200 kg per person per year (our calculation). This covers personal and professional uses, about half of them hosted abroad. We did not find how these 200 kg are split between uses, and we found no published data on TikTok's servers.

4"As much as Greece": an extrapolated total that cannot be verified

According to the Belgian newspaper La Libre Belgique, a study published by a consulting firm in December 2024 estimated TikTok's footprint in 2023 at about 50 million tonnes of CO2e worldwide, against 51.67 million for Greece. The study uses 2.921 gCO2e per minute and 45.5 minutes a day, which gives 48.49 kg per user per year, and extrapolates the 7.6 million tonnes calculated for the United States, the United Kingdom and France to the whole world.

Converted to an hour, that per-minute figure comes to 175 gCO2e (our conversion), which is 2.7 to 4.9 times the 3 references and 1.7 times our highest calculation. Applied to 1 billion users at 46 minutes a day, the 3 references would give 10 to 18 million tonnes a year (our calculation).

The study page (undated, read on 4 October 2026) does not repeat the figures quoted in the press. It gives a breakdown that would explain most of the gap, if it applies to those figures: about 2.9 g per minute, of which 2 g for data centres and 0.9 g for data transfer. We did not find the source of these 2 values. That comes to 120 g per hour for data centres alone (our conversion), or 33 kg a year at the average daily time used in the study.

For 1 hour of video, our calculation and the references give 0.5 to 1.8 g for data centres, whereas the study counts about 70 to 240 times as much. Over a year, that makes 33 kg per user for the servers of a single application, against the 200 kg per inhabitant that ADEME counts for the servers behind all digital uses. These 2 comparisons remain indirect: none of these sources covers TikTok's servers.

TikTok disputed this result. According to Fortune magazine (13 December 2024), a spokesperson said that the total emissions of ByteDance, its parent company, were below 20% of the estimate in 2023, which is less than 10 million tonnes if that 20% refers to the worldwide total (our calculation). Fortune adds that every year since 2021 ByteDance has produced a greenhouse gas inventory aligned with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, the corporate carbon accounting standard, and that this inventory counts data centres operated by third parties.

The study page nonetheless attributes about two thirds of its figure to data centres. If the 2 counts cover the same servers, they cannot both be true, and we could verify neither of these 2 counts: Fortune does not detail ByteDance's inventory and, according to La Libre Belgique, TikTok was not publishing its emissions at the end of 2024.

5Reducing your footprint without giving up video: phone lifespan, Wi-Fi and time spent

Keeping your phone for longer addresses the manufacturing share. A new smartphone represents 80 kgCO2e according to ADEME, or 32 kg a year over 2 and a half years: more than the 10 to 18 kg of a year of video, whose upper bound already includes a share of manufacturing. With a phone kept for 4 and a half years, which the right to repair (in French) makes easier, an hour of video falls from 58 to 45 g (our calculation).

The Arcom, Arcep and ADEME study also recommends Wi-Fi rather than the mobile network and a picture quality suited to the screen. On this last point, the sources disagree: according to the Carbon Trust, definition has very little effect, whereas the ADEME model counts the network in proportion to the data.

Time spent is the factor that varies the most, by a ratio of 1 to 3.5 between the measurements cited. For comparison, generating 5 seconds of video with AI takes as much electricity as 1 hour 10 minutes of online video (our calculation: 90 Wh measured in 2025, against 77 Wh per hour of video according to the IEA).

6Key takeaways

• 1 hour of online video emits 36 to 64 gCO2e according to 3 public references that do not count the same things.
• At 46 minutes a day, a year of video comes to 10 to 18 kgCO2e, the equivalent of 71 to 126 km by car.
• In per-hour calculations, the phone and the network make up almost all of the total: data centres account for at most 5%.
• The December 2024 study uses 175 g per hour (our conversion), including 120 g for data centres according to its page; TikTok disputed this result.

See also: how an email compares with an hour of video, our overview of the environmental impact of AI and the IT carbon footprint of companies.

Further resources

Frequently asked questions

1Is TikTok's carbon footprint as big as Greece's?

That is the conclusion of a study published in December 2024 by a consulting firm: about 50 million tonnes of CO2e in 2023, against 51.67 million for Greece. The estimated total stays below Greece's, even though La Libre Belgique headlines a larger footprint. The total extrapolates to the whole world a calculation made for 3 countries, at 2.921 gCO2e per minute, or 175 g per hour (our conversion), which is 2.7 to 4.9 times the references of the International Energy Agency, the Carbon Trust and ADEME (our calculation). According to the study page, about 2 g of the 2.9 come from data centres; we did not find the source of this value. TikTok disputed this result and, according to La Libre Belgique, was not publishing its emissions at the end of 2024. Without published data on TikTok's servers, this total cannot be verified.

2How much CO2 does an hour on TikTok produce?

An hour of online video emits between 36 and 64 gCO2e according to 3 public references, which do not count the same things and none of which measures TikTok. On a phone over Wi-Fi, Greenspector puts TikTok use in 2023 at 0.96 g per minute, or 58 g per hour (our conversion). Our calculation with the ADEME model ranges from 36 g (0.7 GB per hour, on Wi-Fi) to 104 g (3 GB per hour, on the mobile network), phone manufacturing included; where it matches some of these values, that is a coincidence.

3Is TikTok worse for the environment than YouTube or Instagram?

Per minute, TikTok is 10% higher in a 2023 measurement: Greenspector puts a minute on TikTok at 0.96 g and a minute on YouTube or Instagram at 0.87 g, on a phone over Wi-Fi. The difference between platforms comes mostly from the time people spend on them. The 2021 edition of the same measurement, run on a different phone with a different test scenario, showed a ratio of 1 to 5.7 between YouTube and TikTok. The December 2024 study applies almost the same per-minute figure to all 3 apps.

4How much CO2 does an hour of video streaming produce?

An hour of video streaming emits 36 gCO2 according to the International Energy Agency (worldwide, 2019, electricity only), about 55 gCO2e according to the Carbon Trust (Europe, 2020, electricity only) and 64 gCO2e according to ADEME's reference value, which includes the manufacturing of the devices. The figure depends on the screen, the network and the country's electricity. In high definition on Wi-Fi, our calculation with the ADEME model gives 71 g on a television, against 58 g on a phone.

5Does streaming video on 4G mobile data emit more CO2 than on Wi-Fi?

Yes. In our calculation with the ADEME model, 1 hour of high-definition video on a phone comes to 58 g on Wi-Fi and 104 g on the mobile network. Counting electricity alone, Arcep calculates that in France 1 gigabyte of data takes 7 times as much energy on mobile networks as on fixed networks (0.14 kWh against 0.02 kWh in 2024).

6Which social media app has the biggest carbon footprint?

In Greenspector's 2023 measurement, TikTok (0.96 g per minute) comes first, ahead of Reddit (0.92 g), YouTube and Instagram (0.87 g); LinkedIn is the lowest (0.47 g). Across apps, the ratio is 1 to 2; across the usage times measured, from 28 minutes to 1 hour 37 minutes a day, it is 1 to 3.5 (our calculations).

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