A new study completed by research teams from Carnegie Mellon University, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Stanford University verifies that downloading music cuts energy consumption and CO2 emissions in comparison to shopping at your local music store.
The study shows that purchasing digital music downloads results in a 40-80 percent reduction in energy use and carbon emissions compared to distributing CDs. The study took into consideration the energy used to download the files over the Internet. It compared four different ways of obtaining and listening to music. The list from most energy intensive to the least is as follows: purchasing a CD in-person at a store, buying a CD online, downloading an album and then burning it to a CD (both with and without a jewel case), and downloading an album and listening to it digitally.
There were some situations that blurred the lines such as if you walked to the music store instead of driving; that would equal the energy and emissions of downloading and then burning an album to disc. This means that driving to the store is the worst part of buying music in person. Also, if the album size is 260MB (compared to the standard 60MB to 100MB) or more, then the energy usage would increase because of the additional energy needed to download the album.
Thus, it appears that downloading music and storing/listening to it on your mp3 player is the most eco-friendly option for enjoying your favorite music.
