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Download Your Music: It's The Green Way

by Warren Riddle on August 19, 2009 at 08:45 AM

Given the waste generated by production and packaging, it should be obvious that purchasing actual CDs creates far more strain on the environment than just downloading music. According to the New York Times, though, some people felt the need to finance a study on the matter, anyway.

In a study funded by both Microsoft and Intel, academicians at Carnegie Mellon University and Stanford University determined that downloading an album produces 40- to 80-percent less carbon emissions than the processes involved with actually buying a physical CD. The study took into account driving to a store, having a CD shipped by air, or having a CD delivered by ground transportation. According to the study, the environmental impact of buying a CD is comparable to burning a CD of downloaded music only if someone actually walks to a store to make their purchase.

While the study does provide actual figures and statistics (to support what should be common sense), this seems like as big a waste of resources as messy CD packaging itself. And, in a related story, Switched has determined that ordering a movie on-demand creates far less strain on the environment than driving to the store and buying a shrink-wrapped DVD. [From: The New York Times]

Tags: carbon footprint, CarbonFootprint, cd, green, music, music downloads, MusicDownloads, top

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