Wanna save the Planet ? Listen to deezer !

Who had thougt it was even possible to go green by downloading music.

Yet, according to the American Consumers Institute (ACI) it’s really accuring.

The first explanation is that downloading music, software applications and video has become commonplace, reducing the need for consumers to drive their cars to buy DVDs, CDs and the like. Obviously less driving be,efits environment. The emission of 23,6 millions tons of greenhouse is estimated to have been spared by music downloads alone in the last ten year

Furthermore other benefits are realized throughoutthe supply chain from the avoidance of production and transportation costs associated with manufacturing and distribution of physical products.

Last year a study had been led also by the ACI. It was entitled “Broadban Services : Economic and environmental Benefit” that tends to prove that the adoption and the use of broadband applications could lead to 1 billion ton reducstion in US greenhouse gas emissions over 10 years.

According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), there were nearly 1.1 billion music CDs, cassettes, LPs, singles and music videos shipped in 1997 and growing. In fact, if the growth rate of shipments had continued, the industry would have shipped arguably 1.8 billion physical units in 2007. Because broadband consumers are downloading music to their computers, IPods and other devices, physical shipments actually fell to 544 million units in 2007 from 1997. To put this drop in shipments in perspective of where 1997’s trend would be today, shipments in 2007 have fallen 1.3 billion units below the trend.

Interestingly, RIAA data shows that downloaded music, including music videos and sales through kiosks, subscription and mobile services, accounted for 1.2 billion units sold in 2007, suggestion that consumers are substituting away from physical recordings to downloaded recordings en masse. Of course, piracy and illegal downloading continues to hurt the industry.

As consumers continue to substitute from physical units to digital downloads, the savings will continue. In the next 10 years, we estimate that 7.3 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions will be avoided by reducing driving miles and 2.5 million tons will be avoided by the elimination of plastic CD cases, resulting in an additional 9.8 million tons of environmental savings.However, the benefits cited here can be far greater, since games, videos, DVDs and computer software can also be downloaded too, saving more driving time and reducing other plastic media, none of which were estimated here. Furthermore, not only does the environment save when a consumer avoids a trip to the store, it saves energy associated with manufacturing, transportation and distribution of the product to the store.Since IT services consume energy, of course, it is also important that consumers power down their equipment when not in use, use power strips to turn off chargers and the like in order to maximize the environmental benefits of using broadband-connected applications.

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