Why It’s Time To Prioritize Sustainable Advertising
Explore what measures advertisers can take to reduce carbon footprint.
Around 60 million tonnes of CO2 are produced yearly due to online advertisements, with data transfer being a large contributing factor, taking up roughly 30%. So what measures can be taken by marketers in order to reduce their carbon footprint? Henrik Hallius, Chief of Staff, SeenThis, explains how the internet is adding to carbon emissions and why a climate action plan for the advertising industry is a must.
In today’s age of environmental crises across all industries, business leaders must start reflecting on the unnecessary use of resources. The world of advertising is no different: marketers must also seek to limit data usage and cut the volume of waste.
Today, the unfortunate reality is that the greenhouse gas emissions of the internet are on par with those of the aviation industry, each accounting for at least 2% of the global total. In the case of the internet, around 30% of that is attributable to data transfer – i.e., the energy required to transfer files from data centers over the core network, the content delivery networks, the access networks to the billions of end-user devices. Digital ads make up a significant part of that data, generating approximately 60 million tonnes of CO2 annually.
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Sustainability in Digital Advertising
It is our shared mission to bring about collective industry action and reduce media’s carbon emissions that has led us to partner with Ad Net Zero, with its five-point action plan to decarbonize advertising and urge businesses to commit to robust, verified plans to reduce their emissions.
There are gains to be made all along the supply chain, and a huge one of these is in the delivery of the ads themselves. Today, most ads are built on traditional delivery technologies that download an entire file whenever a request to the server is triggered. This means that if you were displayed a 20-second video ad but chose to scroll that out of view after two seconds, traditional technology would still transfer all data for that video, most of it unnecessarily.
SeenThis streaming, however, enables the delivery of high-quality, instant-loading ads by being smarter about if, what, and when data should be sent when an ad is served. We split the image or video into smaller segments and stream them only when required, thereby avoiding unnecessary data transfer. Using our technology, we would only transfer the data needed for those two seconds with a high-quality user experience. And when you decide to scroll out of view, we will stop transferring any data.
Streaming improves business performance and user experience, as well as avoiding a great deal of data waste. This is a huge win/win, and yet today, vast amounts of data flow unnecessarily across the web – data that has no impact on the end user experience while increasing carbon emissions at a time when they so desperately need to be reduced.
Drilling down into specifics, we find that most campaigns show data transfer savings of between 25% and 55% using our streaming technology, with savings of around two-thirds possible as processes improve. We also work with our suppliers in their net-zero transition through green energy usage and lowering of embedded emissions of the internet infrastructure, as many parts of the complex processes which underpin the media ecosystem make significant contributions, or reductions, to our collective emissions.
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Ways to Save Energy
Certainly our industry’s contribution to the climate crisis is huge, and it is vital that we bring these numbers down as fast as possible. This is especially true given that data transfer is projected to skyrocket in the coming decade, growing at a rate of 40% per year – resulting in a huge projected increase by 2030.
Clearly, to tackle this problem, offsetting is not a long-term solution – we need to focus on actual reduction. To do that, it’s important to share ideas, to educate about the difference between reduction and offsetting and what constitutes net zero. Until you understand your footprint, there is a risk of ‘greenwashing’ and ‘greenwashing’, often in good faith. If we can get to the point of true understanding and awareness, we can then focus more effectively on action.
Why not simply stop advertising? The key lies in what is sometimes referred to as the ‘triple bottom line’, which means that, in order for something to be truly sustainable, it needs to cater not only to the planet but also to people and profit. We can’t demolish the economy and impoverished people in order to save the environment – we need to ensure our solutions enable all three to thrive.
Fortunately, many are waking up to this, as the narrative of viewing increased sustainability in terms of value creation starts to catch on.
With time running out to fight the climate crisis, this issue is now being addressed not only in industry but one level above, around capital and investment. Here, we are noting a real paradigm shift, with many conversations taking place across a broad set of stakeholders and throughout the C-suite. There is room for optimism, but there is much to be done.
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Image Source: Shutterstock
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