IAB Australia recently published an industry briefing article with some background, updates on, and recommendations for sustainability in Digital Advertising.
As a follow-up we were keen to collate further inputs from some our expert members through a collaborative Q&A. We hope you find it useful.
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Adele Wieser – APAC Regional Managing Director, Index Exchange
How can members amend programmatic practices in light of the growing realisation that many of the standard auction-based practices are quite heavy in terms of computational efforts and resultingly carbon emissions?
The most effective way to reduce carbon emissions is by focusing on efficiencies in the supply chain. For buyers, this means reducing the number of supply chain partners they work with, also known as Supply Path Optimisation (SPO).
Reducing the number of steps in the programmatic auction drastically improves not only the efficiency measures that an SSP or DSP is able to provide but it also supports a more sustainable path to buying supply.
For publishers, especially in the streaming TV environment, there are many factors that dictate the scale to which we can reduce the advertising industry’s carbon footprint. By bringing more efficiency to programmatic transactions in streaming TV, ad podding improves sustainability and drives down the carbon footprint.
At a high level, ad pods are groups of ad slots in a commercial break. For example, a 120-second ad pod would contain several 15-, 30-, 60-, or 90-second ad slots. Before OpenRTB 2.6 introduced pod bidding, media owners and buyers had to transact each ad slot individually. Now, we can take all of those opportunities and group them within a single ad pod in a single bid request.
Ad podding in video environments plays a significant role in reducing outgoing bid requests by 88%, and the returned bids by 59%.
By eliminating the need for all parties to deal with duplicative requests, bids, and creatives, we can improve efficiency and reduce emissions.
We can achieve this by having everyone across the industry adopt OpenRTB 2.6 and support ad podding.
What practical recommendations do you know of, or have been reviewing, for industry to be operationally more efficient and effective in order to minimise carbon emissions related to digital advertising?
For media owners, we recommend the adoption of standards and best practices including enabling the use of a placement ID or GPID to audit existing supply paths.
When it comes to the supply chain, media owners should be adopting and inspecting ads.txt and sellers.json, heightened use of the SupplyChain object, which has also been thinly adopted by the ecosystem.
The SupplyChain object also tracks an impression through the supply chain and effectively counts the hops it goes through. This gives the placement a unique label that can then be tracked through the digital advertising supply chain to ensure that you’re not processing those impressions in a redundant capacity and therefore burning carbon that’s not necessary.
For media buyers, It’s twofold. Firstly, simplifying the supply path through SPO strategies that drive further efficiencies in media buying, and reducing wastage. Secondly, is using Green Media Products that derive from green media sources, and help eliminate inefficient supply, such as made-for-advertising inventory or sites with thousands of programmatic partners, to make the most of media investments and reduce the emissions required to deliver an ad.
In practice, the use of Green Inventory Packages which are certified carbon-neutral media sources that are measured by Scope3, and are an easy and quick way to invest in carbon-neutral media and make progress toward net zero commitments.
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Perry Smith – NZ Senior Sales Manager, Ogury
How important is cross-industry collaboration for us all to work effectively on these issues? What could go wrong if we are not aligned locally and globally as an industry?Sustainability isn’t about competition. It’s about doing what’s right for our planet, and we cannot do that in siloes. Every individual is responsible for some form of impact on the environment, and we need to work as a collective to achieve real positive outcomes.
From a business perspective, misalignment would lead to confusion among players, be detrimental to business and would likely lead to the industry making little to no progress on the sustainability front. IAB Australia, along with some of its partners, have been great at leading the charge on sharing guidelines for more responsible advertising – such as the IAB Europe’s Guide to Improving Sustainable Business Decision Making or the Alliance Digitale’s Eco-Friendly Programmatic Media Buying guide in France.
At Ogury, we have started opening the conversation with our clients and agencies, but also with publisher partners, as we believe every stakeholder needs to be involved in order to achieve real results. We have also recently kicked-off our own sustainability journey, and developed a strategy to become a more responsible partner.
What advice do you have for companies looking to research into this increasingly critical topic and try and plan ahead for any potential operational changes to come?
The first step is to identify a person / team of people who can fully own this complex topic. Secondly, businesses need to arm themselves with certified third-party partners, who have the proper methodology to help companies assess their carbon footprint (doing so by following the GHG protocol, for example).
At Ogury, we have partnered with Greenly in order to run our carbon footprint assessment and have looked at Scopes 1, 2 and 3 to gain a 360 perspective on our global impact. Based on that footprint, we worked with Greenly in order to put together a plan of action that aims to optimise our emissions.
The third piece of advice is to look beyond campaign measurement only and really approach the business in a holistic way. There are many parameters that can affect a company’s carbon footprint, outside of pure advertising activities. And in order to truly make a difference, a business needs to be fully aware of all the factors that contribute to its footprint on the environment.
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Adam Roberts – AU/NZ General Manager, SeenThisWhat are you hoping to see in terms of industry alignment and a consistent framework for measurement & metrics?
We would like to see the industry progress to one consistent open and transparent framework for the measurement of CO2 emissions. This framework would need to be owned and governed by an independent organisation such as a trust that continually evolves the systems and boundaries and inclusions for the database of measurement. This will then enable comparison between measurement companies and various tech organisations enabling smarter business decisions.
With a consistent framework the industry can then include environmental performance metrics alongside economic outcomes of media ensuring that we create long term more sustainable media solutions.
Lastly the framework will only be as good as the data that is provided. We need industry collaboration to drive best practice of data and energy consumption and emission reporting data provided by companies who are contributing to the framework.
How important is cross-industry collaboration for us all to work effectively on these issues? What could go wrong if we are not aligned locally and globally as an industry?
It is key, without it we will end up with multiple frameworks that don’t align which will slow down progress and reduction of emissions. Unlike the measurement of digital ads, such as viewability, the reporting of emissions will have regulatory pressures at a local level and global level.
Our industry needs to work together to ensure we can meet any reporting standards at both a company and product level – think GDPR 2.0, when regulators step in and the disruption that will cause to the industry.
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Alba Marco – Head of Supply Partnerships, YahooWhat advice do you have for companies looking to research into this increasingly critical topic and try and plan ahead for any potential operational changes to come?
- Check the IAB Initial Sustainability best practices and recommendations.
- Ask your technology partners about their ESG initiatives.
- Work with your technology partners on shared goals to reduce your footprint.
What practical recommendations do you know of, or have been reviewing, for industry to be operationally more efficient and effective in order to minimise carbon emissions related to digital advertising?
- Move to more efficient Data Centers.
- Reduce the number of partners and auctions involved in the supply chain.
- Reduce the number of technology partners your organization relies on.
- Many of the ad-fraud initiatives also result in minimizing carbon emissions as a cleaner path would lead to lower carbon emissions – continue looking at ad fraud as a key indicator.
- The use of AI to reduce things like traveling to different destinations for creative builds, generating AI powered creative variations etc. instead of physically visiting different locations.
- Request a reduced creative size without compromising on quality. Find that sweet spot.
- Invest in Green PMPs with carbon offset and carbon measurement via a partnership with one of the companies focused on measuring carbon emissions such as Scope3 or Good Loop.
- Include supply path optimization (SPO) goals in your core strategy to ensure effective monetization and reduce wasted transactions.
- For publishers, produce more sustainable and ESG related content on your own & operated media properties.
- Empower employees to lead sustainable initiatives across your global offices.
What are you hoping to see in terms of industry alignment and a consistent framework for measurement & metrics?
Introduction of standardised emission or carbon offset metric (e.g., cost per 1000 impression emission) to understand which bid paths are most efficient.
Australia wide ad-industry emission goals for the next 3/5/10 years that will encourage buyers to partner with the most sustainable technology and publisher partners more often and therefore reward them.
Increased transparency in the supply chain through a carbon emission metric incoming in the bid request that will enable industry benchmarks aimed to reduce the carbon footprint from end-to-end.
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Nathan Farrugia – Senior Technical Operations Specialist, REA Group
What advice do you have for companies looking to research into this increasingly critical topic and try and plan ahead for any potential operational changes to come?
Some key advice I’d highlight from the playbook is to focus on supply path optimisation to cut wasted ad calls, shift budget to renewable energy-powered publishers, implement emissions measurement tools, and collaborate with vendors on transparency.
On the buy-side, companies should request sustainability KPIs from partners, optimize creative file sizes, and leverage context over behavior where possible to limit computational load.
It’s also wise to stay on top of emerging regulations, integrate sustainability into planning, and lead by example in your sphere of influence. Transforming operations requires work but pays dividends.
Most importantly, sustainability demands collective action. We must come together as an industry to align on frameworks for emissions accountability. Transparency from partners is essential, as Scope 3 emissions are beyond direct control.
By following guidance from resources like the IAB Tech Lab’s Playbook, companies can future-proof for operational changes on the horizon. But real progress requires starting your sustainability journey today.
What practical recommendations do you know of, or have been reviewing, for industry to be operationally more efficient and effective in order to minimise carbon emissions related to digital advertising?
Here are some practical recommendations, that I know of, for the digital advertising industry to minimise carbon emissions by improving efficiency and effectiveness:
- Research and look at ways to reduce duplicated bid requests and intermediaries I.e supply path optimization (SPO). This cuts down on wasted ad calls and unnecessary computation.
- Shift budget to publishers using renewable energy sources. Support partners taking steps to de-carbonise.
- Implement lightweight creatives by following IAB Australia’s’s guidance. Smaller file sizes reduce energy needed for loading ads.
- Leverage context over behaviour for targeting where possible. This limits computational load from complex auctions.
- Request sustainability KPI reporting such as emissions per impression. Use data to optimise.
- Adhere to standards (such as ads.txt) to improve transparency. This exposes inefficiency for correction.
- Consolidate measurement and SDK scripts and implement Open Measurement. Each unique script consumes resources unnecessarily.
- Turn campaigns off once goals are achieved so they aren’t still running needlessly.
- Collaborate with supply partners on carbon transparency. Consistent data enables better decisions.
There are many opportunities to reduce waste through smarter planning, execution, and technical optimisations – but ultimately it will requires our industry coming together to align on frameworks for transparency and accountability.