If there's one thing advertising is good at, it's encouraging consumers to spend. But doing so wastes a lot of energy and releases millions of tons of carbon dioxide.
This is especially true for digital programmatic advertising. Serving digital ads requires data to travel between servers and from advertisers to ad exchanges to publishers' inventories to access their audiences, each step of the process consuming energy. , emit carbon dioxide.
The entire ecosystem of advertisers, ad platforms, and other data then sends the collected data to data warehouses for storage and analysis, resulting in more energy being consumed and more carbon emissions being generated. It happens. These servers are mostly located in data centers, so that's where the biggest impact will occur. Emissions are expected to grow faster and faster as artificial intelligence, which is becoming part of the advertising ecosystem, requires more processing power.
Advertising pollutes. CEPSA, a company specializing in sustainable mobility, estimates that one advertising campaign generates 70 tons of CO2 emissions. This is equivalent to the annual emissions of an average of seven people. Digital marketing consultancy Fifty-five estimates that: Digital ecosystems account for 3.5% of all greenhouse gas emissions generated.. And it's growing faster than civil aviation. CEPSA claims advertising industry emissions have increased by 11% since 2019, And currently, 32% of each person's carbon footprint comes from the ads they see and receive. According to 2018 estimates, advertising accounts for 10% of all energy consumption generated by the internet. Based on environmental impact assessment review.
How are these environmental impacts measured? There are three types of emissions:
- scope 1 Emissions directly arising from a company's business activities are covered. This is the easiest to track, so it is the most commonly measured.
- scope 2 Emissions result from the production of energy used in a company's business activities.
- scope 3 Emissions are generated both downstream and upstream by sources that are not directly owned by the company. Downstream inputs include the raw materials purchased by a business to produce goods and services, while upstream effects occur as a result of the use of the product.
Scope 3 emissions are less commonly reported because 1) they are much more difficult to track, and 2) there is often no clear benefit to companies from reporting these additional emissions. But this is changing. From 2025, large companies operating in the EU will be required to report their Scope 3 impacts under the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD).
Purpose Disruptors, a network of advertising experts working to reduce the impact of digital advertising, has estimated that the UK advertising industry alone will emit 208 million tonnes of CO2 in 2022. Based on current population statistics, this equates to approximately 3 tons per person per year. In light of new EU regulations and proposed SEC regulations in the US on reporting Scope 3 emissions (emissions deemed material), companies need to be proactive in tracking and managing their advertising carbon footprint. there is.
Part of the carbon footprint of programmatic advertising comes from consuming the products and services being promoted, but there's also pollution from wasted media. According to a report by marketing and media consulting firm Ebiquity and Scope 3, approximately 15% of the world's digital advertising never reaches consumers and is illegally “made for advertising” with the sole purpose of serving the ad. It is estimated that the information will be sent to a “MFA'' (MFA) site. This is not only a waste of energy, but also a huge waste of money. According to digital ad performance firm Next & Co, he wasted $5.6 billion in 2022, representing 41% of total digital ad spending.
So how can you reduce your digital advertising emissions? Here are three things advertisers can do.
Dynamic price floor: Optimizing ad requests provides the best price for publishers and the best price for programmatic buyers. The best solutions use AI and machine learning to make real-time predictions for each impression, creating the right floor at the right time. Additionally, advertisers can screen DSPs (demand side platforms) for their sustainability efforts and how they are reducing their own emissions. How green are the servers? How many SSPs do they utilize?
Optimize for quality content: Optimize your video content or deliver campaigns only over Wi-Fi Connecting without the mobile internet can reduce advertising emissions by 50-70%. Ebiquity/Scope3 research shows that reallocating investments to quality journalism can make advertising more effective and reduce emissions. Bid adjustment helps buyers focus on quality over quantity by pausing bid requests to the SSP after a specified number of no bids are returned, improving win rates and inventory quality. This will lead to an improvement in
Carbon offset: Reduce the impact of carbon emissions by purchasing high-quality carbon credits and investing in renewable energy projects. be careful. This is considered the least effective method of reducing emissions because it allows purchasers to continue the practices that required mitigation in the first place.
Sustainable advertising is a complex task, and one where AI can help with measurement and management decisions. Measuring the carbon impact of your investments as a KPI for media allocation decisions can help you understand the trade-offs between emissions sources and business goals.
michael coen Plus Company Chief Data and Analytics Officer
brian bollinger George A. Kellner Faculty Fellow, Professor of Marketing, New York University Stern School of Business
