  The information and communication technology sector reportedly has a relevant
impact on the environment. Within this sector, video streaming has been
identified as a major driver of CO2-emissions. To make streaming more
sustainable, environmentally relevant factors must be identified on both the
user and the provider side. Hence, environmental assessments, like life cycle
assessments (LCA), need to broaden their perspective from a mere technological
to one that includes user decisions and behavior. However, quantitative data on
user behavior (e.g. streaming duration, choice of end device and resolution)
are often lacking or difficult to integrate in LCA. Additionally, identifying
relevant determinants of user behavior, such as the design of streaming
platforms or user motivations, may help to design streaming services that keep
environmental impact at a passable level. In order to carry out assessments in
such a way, interdisciplinary collaboration is necessary. Therefore, this
exploratory study combined LCA with an online survey (N= 91, 7 consecutive days
of assessment). Based on this dataset the use phase of online video streaming
was modeled. Additionally, factors such as sociodemographic, motivational and
contextual determinants were measured. Results show that CO2-intensity of video
streaming depends on several factors. It is shown that for climate intensity
there is a factor 10 between choosing a smart TV and smartphone for video
streaming. Furthermore, results show that some factors can be tackled from
provider side to reduce overall energy demand at the user side; one of which is
setting a low resolution as default.
