As digital content consumption has risen and digital advertising has delivered superior outcomes to advertisers, the scale and scope of the internet has increased.
The internet now accounts for approximately 3.7% of global greenhouse emissions, and has a wider carbon footprint than the airline industry. The five big contributors to the media industry’s carbon footprint are:
- Data centers and storage
- Core network (sharing data)
- Content delivery networks
- Access network
- End-user devices
Data processing and networked devices make up the majority of digital advertising’s impact on the environment and are projected to grow at a rate of 40% per year, resulting in a 40x increase by 2030. Advertisers and agencies are increasingly focused on reducing the emissions resulting from their media campaigns and are considering three main approaches to do so:
- Making their data transfer more energy efficient
- Reducing the amount of data used
- Using clean energy to power the internet
Introducing PubMatic’s Carbon Efficient Auction Packages
Advertisers and agencies can now partner with PubMatic to programmatically activate auction packages to reach their audiences across green inventory sources, reducing the amount of carbon their ad campaigns leave. PubMatic’s Carbon Efficient Auction Packages are developed through a proprietary methodology leveraging ads.txt data to benchmark a publisher’s carbon footprint based on the complexity of the publisher’s supply chain. Fewer intermediaries and partner integrations equate to fewer carbon emissions equate to a more sustainable inventory source.
Through this methodology, PubMatic analyses by publisher domain: number of SSPs integrations and number of direct and reseller integration types, in combination with performance-based metrics, to calculate whether a publisher’s supply chain operates in an environmentally friendly and efficient manner. This package bundles up the publishers with the least number of integrations across the ecosystem, a proxy for lower carbon emissions.
Media buyers that allocate media spend towards these PubMatic Carbon Efficient Auction Packages are not only reducing their carbon footprint, but are demonstrating, through their media investment, their commitment in prioritizing partners who contribute to a transparent, efficient and responsible supply chain.