Within the next few weeks, we will be rolling out the first proof of concept of our deal delivery solution that aims to limit CO2 emissions while still achieving the same levels of performance.

Back in April, we shared our views on our willingness to develop solutions for carbon footprint measurement and sustainability. Today, we can officially announce that we have worked for months on a proof of concept to assess our digital campaign delivery solution’s carbon footprint. Below we would like to share more detail on our efforts and commitments.

Digital carbon emissions are complex, but we can distinguish five main pillars emitting CO2. These are the creation of advertising content, the allocation of ad space, the distribution of the ad, the use of the user terminal, and the sending of reports.

As an ad tech company delivering digital campaigns, we can act on the allocation (programmatic exchanges), distribution (ad content delivery), and display (ad content activation) pillars. Obviously, each part emits CO2 at a different scale and we worked hard to design the right methodology to analyze the energy consumption of each step of the process.

This calculation methodology means we can now estimate the environmental impact of our digital campaigns through the following assessment criteria:

Overall Measurement: The KPIs We Provide To Assess Our Emissions

These results give an overview of the CO2 emissions with concrete comparison to better understand the environmental impact.

  • Carbon footprint of the deal (kgCO2e)
  • Equivalent number of km by car
  • Equivalent number of trips from Paris to NYC by plane
  • Equivalence in smartphones manufactured
  • Number of deal impressions
  • Carbon CPM: carbon footprint for 1,000 impressions (gCO2e)
  • Carbon footprint of the deal, servers, and networks (kgCO2e)
  • Total improvement margin (%)
  • Total margin of improvement (kgCO2e)

The Criteria We Take Into Account To Measure These Emissions

Thanks to the SSP view, we provide a closer look at CO2 emissions by taking the following criteria into account – including a deep look at the inventory.

  • Servers
  • Devices (PC, smartphones, tablets, TVs, and other devices)
  • Environment (web, mobile web, app)
  • Domain, app, bundle ID
  • Countries
  • Formats (display, video, native)
  • Deal type
  • Creative size
  • Creative duration
  • Days/hours

Variation Analysis: CO2 Emissions Benchmark

The variation defines the maximum and minimum of potential CO2 emissions according to the settings for each deal measurement criteria.

  • Device variation
  • Country variation
  • Deal type variation
  • Format variation
  • Creative size variation
  • Creative duration variation

This is an overview of the CO2 calculation scope of our delivery solution. It’s a major step forward and we are proud of this advancement. But footprint assessment is just the first step.

We are now focusing on reducing and monitoring CO2 emissions by identifying the appropriate and most relevant levers to pull to diminish carbon emission and collect insights to better educate our customers, partners, and prospects to operate in a more sustainable way.

Our very first campaign started at the beginning of September. With several advertisers already on board to test out the solution, stay tuned as we continue to share more details on our efforts and progress towards supply path decarbonization.


Learn about our sustainability offering