Digital advertising is less eco-friendly than you may think – and MiQ is planning to do something about it.
With an estimated 3.8% of global carbon emissions caused by the internet, including digital advertising – creating roughly one billion tons of greenhouse gases yearly – this programmatic advertising company is not only looking to eliminate its own carbon footprint, but extend that courtesy to its brand advertiser and media agency clientele.
From creative to supply chain processes to publisher content, digital advertising is a carbon intensive industry.
“It’s our corporate responsibility to educate and make the wider industry aware of the issue and the challenge we’ve got in front of us,” says Jason Furlano, MiQ SVP of commercial.
To that end, MiQ and its 18 offices have established a worldwide partnership with Scope3, an ad tech start-up that aims to help companies reduce their carbon-emitting activity.
MiQ supplies Scope3 with detailed campaign data; Scope 3 applies its model and calculates the amount of carbon emissions being generated; MiQ uses the carbon data to provide recommendations and insights to the brand, and together MiQ and its client choose offsetting projects and purchase the appropriate credits. Ultimately this delivers purpose-driven profit and honours business sustainability goals.
Sustainable Ads by MiQ provides marketers the opportunity to mitigate the environmental impact of their digital advertising by measuring, reducing and offsetting carbon emissions in the programmatic supply chain.
According to Scope3 research, the four components to a web page’s emissions include the browser, data transmission energy, content production costs and targeting and analytics. The generated emissions are calculated by simulating a page, which reveals CPU usage and downloaded data.
That research also suggests that approximately one gram of carbon is produced with each generation of an ad impression.
So, how is MiQ helping?
“Our primary focus is in the way we’re going about sustainable advertising – how we can be a sustainable partner to the brands and agencies we work with,” says Furlano.
“What we’re doing in the background is assessing the impact of emissions that our businesses produce directly or indirectly. With that, we’ve engaged some external consultants so that we can start to assess our current carbon footprint and then establish a plan.
“By 2030, we need to be reducing our carbon footprint by 40% to 50% and then reach net zero by 2050, so we all have a part to play,” Furlano explains.
He adds that MiQ will be relying on partner expertise in terms of measuring the carbon output.
“When you look at the advertising supply chain, there are many different parts that are working in tandem from an upstream emissions and downstream emissions perspective,” Furlano explains. “So, we’re choosing multiple measurement partners that are experts in each kind of component and phase within that.”
Furlano adds that one of the biggest challenges MiQ will undertake is educating its clients.
“It’s a big part of our value proposition: not only are we identifying an issue to organizations that have these net-zero goals by 2050, but we’re going to tell them that they have a problem that they weren’t aware of.
“In the same breath, we’re actually going to provide them with a solution to assure that they aren’t detracted from those goals they’ve set out for themselves.”
MiQ’s Jason Furlano
He says part of that assistance will be incorporated through MiQ’s Carbon Dashboard.
“The expectation for the Dashboard is to, in a very transparent way, identify the carbon emissions that are created by a media campaign. In addition, we don’t just want to throw carbon credits at it. The Dashboard is for learning. So, a big part of the value proposition that MIQ is going to provide is that as each campaign is executed, we will become more intelligent in facilitating executions that limit those carbon emissions.
“So, maybe the first campaign we execute is 50 metric tons. And through that process of identifying ways to be more responsible in campaign execution, the next campaign rolls back to 40 tons in carbon emissions. Then, 30. We’re looking to decrease the amount that we’re going to have to allocate in carbon credits through smarter executions facilitated by MiQ.”
Adds Furlano, “We’re choosing high-quality offsetting projects to be able to offset the impact of any campaign. We’re not just looking to run a campaign measure and offset it each time. The whole point is to be able to reduce emissions campaign over campaign.
“The ambition really for us is to align with our clients’ net-zero goals. We’re making sure what they’re doing is sustainable and it’s taking the environment into account while they are making advertising and making a profit.”
With over 120 countries committed to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, Furlano wants MiQ to shepherd the advertising industry into doing its part.
“It’s a monumental shift in the way that our industry executes and activates,” Furlano notes. “From a thought leadership perspective, this is something that we’ve been known for and I want to continue to push those boundaries.”
Learn more about MiQ sustainable ads:
MiQ is a programmatic media partner for marketers and agencies. It connects data from multiple sources to do interesting, exciting, business-problem-solving things for clients. The MiQ team are experts in data science, analytics and programmatic trading, and are ready to react and solve challenges quickly to make sure clients are spending their media investments on the right things in the right places.
