Five Years In: New Phase for Greening of Streaming
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Greening of Streaming Enters New Phase with Formal Governance and First Measured Insights into Streaming's Energy Footprint
The industry's sustainability initiative marks five years by moving from collaboration to measurable impact.
Paris, 8 April 2026 — Greening of Streaming (GoS), the global member-led organisation working to reduce the environmental impact of streaming, is entering a new phase of its development, marked by formalised governance, a restructured research model, and the emergence of one of the first cross-workflow measurement approaches to streaming energy use.
After five years of collaborative work across the streaming ecosystem, GoS is now transitioning from an informal industry initiative into a structured, evidence-producing organisation capable of supporting both industry decision-making and policy development.
From Estimates to Measurement
A central milestone in this transition is the operationalisation of the REM platform, developed through two years of hackathons and iterative collaboration.
REM is the first industry tool providing actual measured energy data across the streaming workflow, moving beyond the modelled estimates that have historically dominated the discussion.
The latest WattLab hackathon analysis provides empirical insights into the energy implications of resolution and bitrate decisions, offering the kind of device-level understanding the industry has lacked until now. Read the full analysis here.
A Structured Research Model
To support this shift toward measurable impact, GoS has reorganised its activities into a lab-based structure, each focused on a specific dimension of streaming sustainability, including measurement, policy, communication, and technical standards.
Currently active labs include Language Lab, WattLab, Policy & Guidelines Lab, Marketing Lab, and Protocol Lab, with Audio Lab and Academia Lab in development. Each lab operates with a defined scope, named leadership, and a growing track record of outputs, reflecting a deliberate move from broad discussion to focused, accountable workstreams.
Formalising Governance
GoS has also established a formal Board of Directors, providing a clear governance framework to support its expanding role and ensure the independence and coherence of its outputs.
Benjamin Schwarz has been elected President. The Board brings together expertise from across the streaming and broadcast ecosystem:
Barbara Lange — Founder, Kibo121
Benjamin Schwarz — Founder, CTOi Consulting
Dom Robinson — GoS Founder and Chief Business Development Officer, Norsk
Marisol Palmero — Independent Consultant
Mike Mattera — Head of Corporate Sustainability, Akamai Technologies, Inc.
Simon Jones — Independent Technologist
Stan Moote — CTO, IABM
Tania Pouli — Founder, Vivid Manta
Veronika Marfina — Independent Consultant
This composition reflects GoS's member-driven model, combining technical, policy, and communications expertise across both commercial and independent perspectives.
Expanding Scope
Alongside measurement work, GoS continues to develop its role as a bridge between industry practice, scientific analysis, and policy development.
Recent work from the Language Lab, Artificial Intelligence in Streaming Media Sustainability: Distinguishing Impact from Innovation, examines where machine learning appears in streaming workflows and its real energy implications. Rather than treating AI as inherently efficient or problematic, the paper addresses the efficiency paradox: AI can both enable optimisation and increase computational demand. The paper has already been covered by DecodeTV. Read the full paper here.
Looking Ahead
As GoS enters its sixth year, priorities include expanding REM to cover CDN and telco infrastructure, progressing the EYANG protocol toward standardisation, and strengthening its contribution to regulatory and policy discussions.
"I've loved technology my whole life and worried about the planet for almost as long. GoS exists to reconcile the two. Five years in, we can finally make real claims about streaming's energy footprint — and back them up. With a proper board and labs doing real measurement work, I think we're building something the industry can rely on." — Benjamin Schwarz, President, Greening of Streaming
About Greening of Streaming
Greening of Streaming is a global, member-led organisation registered as a non-profit association in France. Through collaborative research, evidence-based publications, and active engagement with standards bodies and regulators, GoS works to reduce the environmental impact of streaming — without greenwashing.
Press contact: Veronika Marfina, hello@greeningofstreaming.org