95% of Digital Media Emissions Come From Supply Chain Partners

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. How Snap and Scope3 Aim to Improve Carbon Measurement for Social Ad Formats 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. For direct buys, ad selection accounted for just 1% of overall media-related emissions, while broadcast was 66% and the user device was 33%. "The journey which I am on, in terms of becoming more carbon neutral, I also want my partners to be in that journey," said Prasad Ghag, global head of media, digital and strategic planning at Sanofi. "Cedara helps to analyze that—like what actions is this partner taking in order to be on the journey of net zero?" Standards coming next month GARM (the Global Alliance for Responsible Media), which has been working on establishing standardized language and measurement around media decarbonization, will release those guidelines next month at the Cannes Lions Festival. Cedara plans to align with those standards, allowing a more seamless side-by-side comparison between different media and tech partners that touch digital ads. "This report is evidence that the source of emissions in a digital ad campaign's value chain cannot be undermined or neglected when it comes to enterprise-level environmental efficiency work," Dimitris Beis, data analyst and sustainability manager at IAB Europe, told ADWEEK. This is the first report from Cedara and includes only percentages. The company plans to release regular reports moving forward, some with hard numbers related to carbon data, diving further into "what media emissions look like across the business and specific activities," Shaw said.

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95% of Digital Media Emissions Come From Supply Chain Partners

Ad selection accounts for over three-quarters of programmatic media emissions

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Kathryn Lundstrom

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