Reducing emissions in advertising is one of the recommendations made by IAB Spain, the advertising, marketing, and digital communications association in Spain, during the 2024 Sustainability Conference, sponsored by Adevinta. The launch of this updated version aims to help all participants in the digital advertising ecosystem value chain.
This allows them to understand how and to what extent their business activity contributes to CO2 emissions. This was presented by the IAB Spain Sustainability Commission, as well as various market players: Adevinta (Alberto Martín), Clear Channel (Juan Carlos Osorio), GroupM (Rocío Coello de Portugal), Hamelin Agency (Marisa Oliver), Havas (Miguel Díaz), Mut (Carlos Moreno de Barreda), Normal (Cristina Diago), Publiespaña (Candela García and Elena García), Tappx (David Lahoz), and Tribaldata (Erik Häggblom).
The Internet also produces
The Guide highlights how there are emissions from so-called invisible waste from the Internet and the cloud. As an illustration, data storage worldwide would be equivalent to the energy generated by five nuclear power plants. Similarly, the Guide also mentions other examples to raise awareness:
- A 1 MB email during its life cycle emits 20g of CO2, the same as a lamp left on for 25 minutes.
- A 1 GB mailbox emits the same amount of CO2 during its lifetime as an oven running for 10 hours.
How can emissions from advertising production and other activities be reduced?
The study mentions that the first step in limiting emissions is to collect data on activities related to the company's environmental performance and make quick decisions to influence emissions reduction. Next, KPIs should be established to help estimate the company's performance, as well as to track progress compared to previous years and then see where the highest emissions are and propose actions to reduce them. At this point, generally 60% of emissions are generated by transportation and business travel, and the remaining 40% comes from energy consumption in offices.
He explains that all players in the digital ecosystem, whether advertisers, advertising agencies, production companies, post-production companies, or other regular suppliers in this sector, who produce or commission advertising pieces from third parties, can generate a carbon-intensive production process.
According to a report by AdGreen, in the first half of 2023, among 446 projects reviewed, the average emissions of a completed production project were 6.1 tons of CO2, similar to the average emissions of the campaign's distribution itself.
Reducing emissions from media planning and buying
The Guide establishes a series of recommendations so that each of the various media outlets and actors in the ecosystem can reduce their emissions.
Advertisers
- Optimize briefings by reducing the size of materials used in digital ads to help decrease the bandwidth required to load and display ads.
- Use lightweight advertising formats, for example, static rather than animated, or lightweight HTML5 ads.
- Select suppliers that offer valid legal guarantees and use efficient practices and technologies to help reduce their carbon footprint.
Media agencies
- Educate agency teams internally to raise awareness among clients about the impact that planning and purchasing advertising campaigns has on their carbon footprint.
- Use a carbon footprint assessment criterion for customers that is aligned with the GHG (Greenhouse Gas Protocol), which provides tools and standards that help markets track progress toward climate change goals.
- Reduce emissions from digital campaigns by working on the development of an in-depth carbon footprint calculator—including media—and connecting with agencies' planning tools.
Media
- Develop content that educates and raises awareness among your audience about the importance of reducing CO2 emissions, using your influence to promote good practices.
- Creating advertising solutions that enable advertisers to reduce the environmental impact of their video and display campaigns on connected TV and digital media.
Adtech companies
- Reduce the number of advertising calls by offering the same inventory through different connections (SPO or Supply Path Optimization).
- Focus on technological optimizations when implementing traffic modeling in adtech platforms to improve server efficiency. Algorithms help reduce the number of unnecessary ads and, therefore, the energy consumption associated with delivering those ads.
- Use market solutions that identify fraudulent traffic for immediate removal from the value chain.
- Differentiate green offerings and prioritize them by identifying market players who are actively measuring their carbon footprint and implementing actions to reduce it.
Key regulations on sustainability in the digital advertising industry
Miguel Herranz, head of the legal and institutional relations department at IAB Spain, reviewed the main sustainability regulations that are already in force, as well as those that have been approved but need to be incorporated into Spanish law, and those that are still being negotiated in the EU and may be particularly affected by the European Parliament elections to be held next June.
These include: corporate information and due diligence on sustainability, justification and communication of explicit environmental claims, and others aimed at empowering consumers to make the transition to a green economy through better information and protection against unfair practices.
Evolution
Lauren Wakefield, Marketing & Communications Director at IAB Europe, shared the main conclusions of the State of Readiness – Sustainability in Digital Advertising Report 2024, a report that compiles the results of a survey of 186 professionals in the digital advertising industry from 29 European markets to analyze the industry's progress in reducing its carbon footprint and improving sustainable practices.
As the report states, sustainability remains a major challenge for the digital advertising industry in 2024. Although nearly three-quarters (70%) of respondents have initiated efforts to reduce CO2 emissions, only a quarter (24%) have made significant progress. To continue making progress, the two major issues to prioritize are, on the one hand, the adoption and development of solutions (90%) and tools (90%) that reduce GHG emissions in the digital advertising supply chain. And, on the other hand, the development of consistent standards for GHG estimation (89%).
Case studies
To conclude the presentation, various companies committed to sustainability shared practical examples of initiatives they have carried out in the field of digital advertising. Oscar Ocaña, Director of Marketing and Innovation at Prisa Media, presented the results of Los40's "Sintoniza con tu Planeta" (Tune in to your Planet) campaign. David Lahoz, Cross Department Product Strategist at Tappx, then presented the company's emissions reduction strategy, and to conclude the day, Marisa Oliver, CEO & Founder of Hamelin, presented an influencer marketing & UGC campaign by Wallapop.
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Advertising without emissions
