Interesting facts about TikTok highlights research by Greenly, which states that the carbon footprint of the popular platform is bigger than that of Greece!

The average time a user spends on TikTok, according to the data, produces greenhouse gases equivalent to driving an extra 123 kilometers in a gas car every year.

Estimates by Greenly—a Paris-based software company—put TikTok’s 2023 broadcasts in the US, UK and France at around 7.6 million metric tons carbon dioxide (CO2e), which are higher than they are X and Snapchat.

TikTok has 1 billion users worldwide and findings show that its carbon footprint is higher than that of Instagram – although Instagram has almost double user base from TikTok. The reason is that the average Instagram user spends 30.6 minutes on the app per day, while scrolling on TikTok reaches 45.5 minutes.

As Greenly CEO Alexis Normand explains: “The whole algorithm is based on the massification of the videos.” “Addiction also has consequences in terms of motivating people to create more and more (carbon footprint) on an individual basis”he notes.

Since the US, UK and France they constitute only 15% of the world user base of TikTokthe total carbon footprint of the platform is likely around 50 million metric tons of CO2e. And since these calculations do not include other smaller sources of TikTok emissions, such as emissions associated with office spaces, for example, it is estimated that actual footprint on the environment is greater.

The comparison with Greece

The Guardian even compares his case TikTok with that of Greecesaying that in our country, Greece’s annual carbon dioxide emissions for 2023 were 51.67 million metric tons of CO2e.

TikTok users also have the second highest broadcasts per minute of use on social media, according to Greenly’s analysis, just behind YouTube.

For example, one minute on TikTok will burn 2.921 grams of CO2e, on average, while one minute on YouTube will burn 2.923 grams. Accordingly, one minute on Instagram burns 2.912 grams.

And for other social media companies, high emissions have also been reported, however, they have makes commitments to power their data centers with clean energy.