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How and where ads are placed has a huge impact on carbon emissions for digital media companies, a new report from carbon intelligence firm Cedara shows.
The report, released today and shared exclusively with ADWEEK, uses data from Cedara clients to map the environmental impact of digital media operations. Using methodologies from the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, SRI and Alliance Digitale, the report breaks down emissions first by scope, and then by type of media operations.
This data fills a hole in industry knowledge around media’s impact on the climate in terms of actual emissions breakdown, David Shaw, CEO of Cedara, told ADWEEK. The few companies that do measure it are privately held and don’t share that information publicly.
“Most of the emissions live at the supplier side,” he said. And as major brands inch toward the net zero targets they’ve set, they need their agency and media partners to measure emissions data and find reduction opportunities where they exist.
This report aims to help business leaders navigate that challenge by breaking Cedara client data down, making it clear how criteria like bid requests and media delivery factor into the overall emissions of the company.
Media dominates scope 3
For digital media companies, 95% of emissions come from what is defined in the Greenhouse Gas Protocol as scope 3, also known as indirect emissions.
Scope 1 emissions refer to those created by items that a company owns or controls, like factories, machines, buildings or vehicles. Scope 2 refers to those generated as a result of purchased heat and electricity, while scope 3 emissions are generated by a company’s upstream or downstream partners, employees, the use of a product or its end of life.
For the companies measured (Cedara has more than 51 clients including Activision, PepsiCo, Sanofi and Indeed), scope 1 emissions accounted for less than 1% of total emissions. Scope 2 accounted for less than 3%, and the rest was scope 3.
Of the companies’ scope 3 emissions, 90% of those came from media, the report showed. That was further broken down by product and whether media was purchased programmatically or directly.
For programmatic, ad selection (bid requests and responses) was 77% of total media-related emissions, while broadcast (creative processing and transmission) accounted for 16% and the end user’s device (used for viewing the ad) accounted for 7% of the overall environmental impact.