Even the seemingly benign pastime known as “Netflix and chill” generates a carbon footprint. The servers powering Netflix’s popular streaming service run on electricity, casts and crews must travel to shooting locations, and office buildings must be air-conditioned. Netfilx’s 2024 ESG report reveals that the company generated around 75,000 metric tons of CO2 equivalent greenhouse gas emissions that year. This is low compared to a coal-fired power plant, but it is sobering to think that the CO2 Netflix released into the atmosphere in 2024 had the mass of a 965-foot-long Panamax freighter.
Netflix’s Chief Sustainability Officer, Emma Stewart, PhD, stated in a 2024 message that the company committed in 2021 to cut its carbon footprint by half and offset the remainder by investing in “natural climate solutions.”
Funga, a public benefit corporation previously featured in this column, has just announced that it signed a deal with Netflix whereby the streaming service giant has committed to buy carbon credits generated through Funga’s innovative fungal restoration technology for the next 11 years.
This is a big milestone for Funga and its founder and CEO, Colin Averill, PhD. Netflix’s purchase represents the first commercial sales of Funga’s carbon credits and serves as a catalytic investment in the startup. Averill described the transaction as “a vote of confidence in a new class of nature-based climate solutions.”