The interactive digital media (IDM) industry encompasses a variety of content, including video games, educational applications, interactive storytelling, and virtual reality. Digital media is a significant industry in Canada, supported by programs such as the Digital Supercluster, the IDM provincial tax credits, and grants delivered through organizations including the Canada Media Fund, Ontario Creates, and Creative BC. The digital media market in Canada reached over $13 billion by the end of 2024, including $5.5B from the video game industry alone.
Considering the size of the industry, the high level of user engagement inherent to digital media, and the software and hardware demands of digital media products, this presents unique challenges to the sector. As the digital media sector grows and companies continue to innovate and adopt new solutions, sustainability is becoming a key concern in balancing the need for technological advancements with the need for sustainability and reductions in intensive resource use.
The Growing Importance of Sustainability in IDM
Much like other industries, IDM is facing a push towards more sustainable alternatives to existing technologies and processes, in working to meet sustainability targets set out by individual companies as well as net-zero goals from the federal and provincial governments. Currently, the global digital ecosystem consumes ~2% of the world’s electricity, with a significant reliance on energy-intensive infrastructure such as hardware production and data centres. Considering continuous improvements made to graphics, software, and the rapid adoption of new technologies, these environmental demands have the potential to grow as more companies are established and user bases increase. Within Canada, an estimated 6% of electricity was consumed by data centres alone in 2021. This has led to greater consideration of alternative materials for hardware, improvements in energy efficiency, and product lifecycles.
Challenges in Achieving Sustainability in IDM
Despite the importance of sustainability in both the digital media sector and other industries in Canada, there are significant barriers to achieving greater sustainability.
- High energy consumption: Substantial power requirements necessitate high power consumption to run and power platforms. For instance, gaming can impose a significant load on servers, data centres, and cloud computing resources.
- Hardware: The hardware demands of many IDM products are substantial, while continuous advancements in technology have resulted in rapid obsolescence in recent years. Current protocols in e-waste recycling can be complex and inefficient, leading to considerable digital waste for both companies and end users.
- Continuous improvements: Given the place of IDM as a cutting-edge industry, companies, and gaming companies in particular, are expected to continue improving on performance, graphics, and design, which contributes further to high energy consumption and e-waste.
- User behaviour: Users can interact with content in numerous different ways, adding complexity to achieving increased sustainability.
Increased Adoption of Sustainable Solutions in IDM
Currently, many IDM products rely heavily on data centres to host, store, and stream content, which presents a significant challenge in achieving a sustainable digital media industry. With an increasing integration of AI and other emerging technologies, energy usage by data centres is anticipated to increase over the next decade, from a combination of high computational demand, continuous operation requirements, cooling requirements, efficiency losses, and storage and data transmission. To address this, some companies, including Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, are now transitioning to renewable energy sources such as solar and wind to power large data centres and reduce carbon footprints. Added to this, improved energy efficiency has been proposed through more efficient cooling systems, optimized power usage effectiveness, improved hardware and infrastructure efficiency through high-efficiency data storage and servers, and the adoption of edge computing.
On a smaller scale, companies are gaining a deeper understanding of how their software in terms of sustainability, performance, and efficiency, through the use of environmental analytics systems, which can be used to track energy consumption, code efficiency, software longevity, downtime frequency, and carbon footprint estimations. In using analytics, digital media firms have the potential to address inefficiencies in systems, leading to increased sustainability. Companies are also gaining increased access to green data centre options, given the commitments made by numerous cloud computing platforms to expand renewable energy usage.
In addressing the large amount of waste associated with hardware, companies have the option to work with sustainably manufactured materials made of recycled and/or biodegradable materials. Newly developed products also have the potential to be designed with the consideration of ease of maintenance and increased component lifespan, both of which reduce the need for frequent disposal of devices.
Working with end users is also an important aspect of addressing sustainability, in establishing best practices and providing resources to enable maintenance of systems which support digital media products, allow access to energy-saving options, and encourage responsible disposal of products.
Support for Sustainable IDM Projects in Canada
Several programs are available for digital media companies based in Canada, which may cover projects relating to technological advancement and increased sustainability in the sector, as well as adoption of more sustainable solutions.
- Provincial IDM tax credits: Industry-specific tax credits are available in several different provinces, with notable programs including OIDMTC and BC IDMTC.
- Provincial and federal SR&ED: IDM companies undertaking innovative projects may be eligible to receive Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED) tax credits.
- Canada Media Fund (CMF) grants: Open to digital media businesses across the country, CMF provides funding for a number of different activities, including prototyping, commercialization, and content creation, in addition to innovation and experimentation.
- Provincial grants: Through organizations including Ontario Creates and Creative BC, grants are open todigital media companies.
- Digital Supercluster: IDM companies collaborating with other organizations may be eligible for certain Digital Supercluster grants. One of the cluster’s current priorities is environmental health.
- National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC IRAP): Small and medium-sized businesses can receive grants for projects building innovation capacity.
- Mitacs: The Accelerate program provides funding for an R&D internship, while Elevate provides funding to work with a research team.
Learn More
Businesses in the digital media space that are looking to reduce their carbon footprint have the opportunity to develop and access sustainable technologies with the assistance of several funding programs. To learn more about how your business can advance digital sustainability and develop innovative solutions to issues within the industry, discuss your options with a NorthBridge expert.
