The second annual Green Media Summit, held last week at the Javits Center in New York, showed the promise of greener pastures for marketers and customers concerned about harmful business practices that are overheating the planet. . Ad technology industry leaders came together to discuss new tools and strategies that will lead to more sustainable digital advertising.
“Our goal this year was to put actionable insights at the center of the discussion,” said Benoit Skinazi, CMO of programmatic ad tech company Sharethrough, which is organizing the event. . “We are fortunate to have industry leaders, climate experts, and storytellers come forward and generously share their experiences and recommendations for building a greener media ecosystem.”
why do we care? There is a clear disconnect between environmentally conscious consumers who want to buy green products and stakeholders who believe that ESG is a four-letter word. Implementing sustainable adtech solutions is part of embracing a larger environmental mission that brands can be proud to communicate to their customers. But these improvements must also make business sense.
“To achieve wider adoption of green digital advertising, it is important to promote the tangible benefits of green media products more vigorously,” said Schinage. “As IPG's Martin Bryan so aptly put it, we need to demonstrate that 'purpose and profit' are indeed compatible.”
Green ad tech tools. At the summit, sustainable adtech company Scope3 introduced its GMP+ green media services. By reducing wasteful advertising, it aims to streamline the advertising supply chain and save advertisers money and emissions.
GMP+ is a standardized media product that protects advertisers from wasteful programmatic advertising. Ads that load outside of the browser's visible area or that reload frequently are examples of digital advertising that advertisers can avoid under GMP+, as they waste money and increase advertisers' carbon footprints.
The Global Placement ID (GPID) standard allows these ads to be flagged. Sharethrough is the first ad tech partner to make GMP+ available to media buyers and publishers through its programmatic platform.
GMP+ improves on its previous version by reducing emissions by 25% by removing high-emission websites from the advertising supply chain.
“[GMP+] It creates a win-win situation,” Schinage said. “This allows advertisers to place ads on higher quality inventory that is more efficient and has a lower carbon footprint. This approach not only improves performance, but also reduces the environmental impact of advertising. will be further reduced.
Mastercard greens the team. The ad tech supply chain is part of a larger system that companies can influence by changing the way they do business. Mastercard has taken steps to align its internal ESG goals with employee performance. In 2021, we introduced an ESG bonus for executives. In 2022, we expanded this effort by tying ESG goals to performance scores for all employees, including our marketing department.
“Sustainability is no longer a nice-to-have,” said Kellyanne Perez-Vera, global media sustainability manager at Mastercard. “This is going to become mandatory in the future because it's the right thing for everyone to do…From an employee perspective, you can see that the company is tying compensation and goals and everything else to this. Morale within the company was very high and everyone was very engaged.”
HSBC Bank is aligning its green operations and portfolio. HSBC Bank has adopted a net-zero approach by measuring emissions both internally and from its investments. The company has committed to making its operations net-zero by 2030 and its portfolio to zero by 2050.
To get there, HSBC Bank monitors the 'Scope 3' emissions generated by the company's value chain, as well as the company itself. (The company name Scope3 is derived from this term.)
“Our business is pretty lean,” said Matthew Cullinen, vice president of global sustainability at HSBC Bank. “Our Scope 3 emissions as a bank are financial emissions. So all our emissions as a client, this is our Scope 3 emissions, plus the emissions of the 20,000 suppliers of the different products we buy. Currently, 50% of our energy comes from renewable energy. We have a goal of 90% by 2025, which is difficult but on track to achieve. ”
Controlling marketing emissions. “We are a financial services company, so Scope 3 initiatives are not necessarily necessary. [what they would be for] But that doesn't stop us,” said Mastercard's Perez Vera. “We recognize that the majority of our emissions come from marketing, and we're tackling it head on. We're jumping in and doing the best we can with the tools and information we have. is needed.”
She further added: “When you actually figure out your carbon footprint, [in marketing], Everything has a carbon footprint. Media teams have to work, and transportation has a carbon footprint. When you go into a building where a strategy meeting takes place and light that building and that particular room, you create a carbon footprint. So what we're doing the best we can is scrutinizing which tools, which products, which teams can help you make real savings, which can be difficult. And yes, digital is a hotspot, so we're being intentional about our media and production shoots to essentially keep things as optimal as possible. ”
A venue full of greenery. The Green Media Summit was held at the Javits Center's Pavilion on the Farm. The venue is located alongside New York State's largest green roof, housing a 1-acre working farm and a total of 6.75 acres of green space.
Dig deeper: Adtech's climate change: Can marketing cool the planet?
