Emma Davis.
Conversations about sustainability have been growing in recent years, with consumers becoming more attuned to the environmental impact of their purchases and chosen products. But what about the advertising supply chain those products are promoted on?
The environmental effects of media buying are not exempt from this conversation. It is estimated that digital advertising contributes to approximately 1.7% of all global carbon emissions. For context, the aviation industry accounts for approximately 2.4% of global emissions. With digital advertising expenditure continuing to rise, these discussions are becoming increasingly relevant and significantly more critical for our industry.
While these conversations are happening within our industry, they are not happening enough with clients. Many still misunderstand the true environmental impact of our industry and how considering sustainability in media planning impacts business results. Misconceptions are repeated over and over, seeming logical at first, but they unravel as soon as you take a closer look at how digital media buying truly works. For marketers, it’s more than an ethical choice, but a strategic choice that can improve performance.
With digital buying now ubiquitous in our industry and the accompanying growth of AI, we need to start discussing digital advertising’s ecological impact with our clients, addressing misconceptions and exploring ways to integrate sustainability without compromising business goals.
Is digital media better for the environment than traditional media?
As media professionals, we're more familiar with the environmental impacts of digital advertising. However, for many clients who aren't as involved, there's still a lot of misunderstanding about the actual environmental impact of choosing digital media channels.
Many clients still assume digital media is better for the environment - a belief based on the fact that the environmental footprint of digital ads is less visible. The “invisible” internet isn't weightless, and in fact it generates 7.2 million metric tons of emissions every year—the equivalent of the yearly electricity usage of 1.4 million US households.
Behind every ad runs a massive network of servers, programmatic platforms, and data exchanges. These entities are all working nonstop to process billions of impressions, consuming enormous amounts of energy in the process. This, in turn, makes digital advertising's carbon footprint as a whole much more significant than people realise. Good-Loop estimated that the average online media campaign emits 5.4 tonnes of CO2, which is a third of what the average Australian consumer produces in a year. Whether we are aware of it or not, our media activity has an enormous environmental impact.
Does buying media sustainability cost more?
While true in many industries, sustainable options often come at a premium; think electric cars, sustainable clothing or carbon-neutral programs. This way of thinking should not be applied to buying sustainable media.
It is important to consider what actually makes a product or process sustainable. Sustainable clothing and electric cars require additional fees or steps to make them considered more sustainable. This differs from buying media sustainably.
To enable media buying to be more sustainable, you should remove inefficient and wasteful steps rather than add costly new steps to the process. There are several ways to achieve this, including streamlining supply chains, using low-energy digital ad formats such as compressed video files, scheduling campaigns when grid electricity demand is lower, and avoiding excessive programmatic bidding.
Sustainable media buying also involves eliminating wasteful steps in the supply chain and removing fraudulent or low-quality placements. This can be done by using integrated DSP and SSP suppliers to simplify the supply chain or a third-party verification tool that will ensure your ads are being seen by humans, not bots. This results in higher quality impressions while also improving efficiency and reducing unnecessary spending.
In 2023, research from DoubleVerify and Scope3 revealed that purchasing higher quality impressions decreased carbon emissions by nearly 65,000 metric tons of CO₂, the equivalent of 8,000 round trips from New York to London. By taking steps to ensure we have high-quality impressions, we are also decreasing carbon emissions.
Would buying media sustainably negatively impact performance?
Many clients worry that sustainable media buying would hurt performance and negatively impact ROI, but in reality, it does the opposite.
By prioritising high-quality impressions over sheer volume and cutting out inefficiencies such as fraud, non-viewable impressions, and low-quality placements, brands can reach more engaged audiences in more premium environments. While overall impression volume may decrease and CPMs may rise slightly, the users reached are far more valuable, leading to better engagement and stronger ROI. At The Media Store, we introduced sustainable buying practices for one of our clients and saw click through rates increase by 133% and site visits grow by 500%, demonstrating that we could decrease our emissions without sacrificing performance.
Will AI solve the problem?
The short answer is: We don’t know.
AI models require substantial computational resources for both training and deployment, resulting in high energy consumption. If not managed appropriately, the substantial carbon footprint of AI could outweigh its potential sustainability benefits.
AI is already an integral part of digital media buying. It enables marketers to target users effectively and is utilised in real-time bidding, fraud detection, and other applications. AI has become a key component in helping drive efficiencies, with companies like Google continuing to grow its AI capabilities and products.
However, this growing reliance on AI introduces several challenges. If AI algorithms aren’t optimised for energy efficiency or require extensive data processing, environmental benefits could be undermined. The challenge will be to align technological innovations with sustainability goals.
When it comes to sustainable media buying, it's not just about cutting down emissions, it's about evolving the way we think about and implement digital advertising. As media professionals, we have the opportunity to educate our clients and help them make decisions that not only support the environment but also lead to more profitable business results.
Emma Davis, Search Manager, The Media Store