Insights

As leaders in our field, we regularly publish reports and commentary on emerging and established sustainability issues. We do so on our own, on behalf of our clients and with our partners.

Clear Filters

The LoCaT Project's report on the energy consumption of different methods of watching TV released Report

The LoCaT project’s study has been released and we are thrilled to have been a part of this significant project, bringing together broadcasters from across Europe to analyse the energy consumption of different methods of watching TV – antennas, Freeview boxes, satellites and online apps.

We developed our own approach, in collaboration with leading academics in this area. We are pleased that the findings from our independent methodology was aligned with other studies in this area, whilst also providing some unique perspectives. We are very proud to have been a part of it and are excited to finally share the findings with you!

The bottom line is that, for individual viewers, the emissions per hour across all viewing methods are still quite small when compared with other every day activities like driving to the shops. When you’re comparing delivery methods of TV content, the many-to-one distribution of terrestrial TV comes out most efficient when compared to linear TV distributed over the internet. What’s still to be explored is the consequential effects of significant increase in internet traffic from viewing TV will affect the internet energy consumption in the longer-term.

Carbon Trust white paper Report

The Carbon Trust have released a white paper on the carbon impact of video streaming. This publication is an important milestone for DIMPACT, a collaborative project run by Carnstone with the University of Bristol to help the digital media industry map and manage its carbon impacts.

The study estimates the average carbon footprint in Europe per hour of video streaming is approximately 55gCO2e, equivalent to boiling an average electric kettle three times.

It also shows that the viewing devices are responsible for the largest part of the overall carbon footprint. For example, the footprint of watching on a 50-inch TV is shown to be roughly 4.5 times that of watching on a laptop, and roughly 90 times that of watching on a smartphone.

The Gender Pay Gap: An initial review of the FTSE 100 and 250 Report

The new Gender Pay Gap reporting regulations produced a flood of data in April 2018. Carnstone has sifted through it to provide like-for-like comparisons for the FTSE 100 and FTSE 250. Which companies have the highest gaps in their sector and which the lowest? Who has the most equal pay in the FTSE 100? Which sectors are most equal and which least? This Review sets the data out simply and comparably to form an essential reference document for this first year’s disclosures.

The Future of Responsible Media Report

Obviously, all companies have a desire to stay alive and be profitable. But above and beyond mere survival, increasingly we expect businesses to play a positive role in society or at least reduce their negative social and environmental impacts as much as possible.

How do such concerns apply to the media sector? What are the key impacts of media companies? How will society hold them to account in the future?

In our newest report, The Future of Responsible Media, we articulate four interrelated challenges, the management of which, we believe, will set ‘good’ companies apart from the ‘bad’ over the next 10 years. We summarise these four challenges as follows:

  • The future of privacy – getting serious about understanding users’ appetite for
    personalised content vs privacy;
  • Coming to grips with being movers – owning up to the fact that media content doesn’t just mirror society, it moves it;
  • Becoming organisations without walls – finding ways of managing impacts in an increasingly splintered media landscape; and
  • Managing the workplace of the future – rethinking existing notions of ‘purpose’, ‘progression’ and ‘hierarchy’ as the competition for critical talent heats up.

Further to this, we identify eight social and technological forces that are likely to transform society generally and the world of media more specifically.

The report is based on rigorous desk-research, the collective insights of the 25 companies participating in the Responsible Media Forum as well as input from some of the brightest sparks in business, politics and academia.