Updates to sustainability guidelines aim to reignite fervor for green media

After releasing its Global Media Sustainability Guidelines at last year’s Cannes Lions festival, Ad Net Zero is back with the first significant update.

The new framework, announced Tuesday during a panel with Mastercard, IAB Europe and Impact Plus at this year’s festival, fully operationalizes the methodology for calculating greenhouse gas emissions across the three biggest ad channels: digital, TV and out-of-home. Guidance for print, audio and cinema has also been developed and will be operational by the end of the year.

Unifying carbon measurement creates opportunities for media buyers to tap into three must-haves: scale, ease and efficiency.

Standard guidelines for the ad industry to follow “creates trust, and trust creates speed,” said Audrey Danthony, co-founder and chief product officer at sustainability firm Impact Plus, during the panel.

“We see the [guidelines] as a possibility for our clients to accelerate their decarbonization process.”

Before the measurement guidelines were released last year, varying methodologies produced accounting that differed six to 10 times based on which partner a company used for measurement.

This led brands to spend more time thinking about the methodology and tools available rather than focusing on the core task at hand, reducing emissions, Danthony said.

Impact Plus’s clients can ingest their KPIs into decisioning tools like reporting and buying algorithms to make a piece of inventory more or less valuable based on its carbon score.

Over 100 companies contributed to these latest guidelines, including L’Oréal, LVMH and all six major holding companies.

Sebastian Munden, global chair of Ad Net Zero, said it’s all about “reducing waste without decreasing effectiveness.”

Mastercard’s Messi magic

With an initiative like Mastercard’s “Priceless” campaign with Lionel Messi potentially delivering billions of impressions across just one digital video spot, the company is already seeing major success in decreasing carbon emissions with simple changes like compressing video files.

Compressing a video from 125 megabytes to around two lowers carbon impact by 90%, Jay Altschuler, SVP of global media and agency relations, said on the panel with Ad Net Zero.

Altschuler made the point that digital and social video are the most effective channels for Mastercard in terms of return on investment (ROI). But business and sustainability goals do not have to be at a crossroads: Both can play into each other.

“This is the big aha and insight,” Altschuler said during the panel. “You don’t have to compromise your ultimate business goals while at the same time reducing carbon.”

Can sustainability stay in vogue?

Perhaps the updated guidelines can reignite the spark for sustainability in the ad industry. The path to going green is a winding one, even as some companies like Mastercard forge ahead.

Scope3, one of the most notable carbon measurement companies, is now prioritizing agentic AI and brand safety, for instance.

When Scope3’s co-founder, Brian O’Kelley, was asked if green media was taking a back seat after the company’s pivot, he told Marketecture, “Right this second, a pure play sustainability business is tough.”

“If you’re making a compromise to buy green, that’s a difficult business proposition,” O’Kelley separately told AdExchanger. “If, on the other hand, you’re using products that happen to be green but are awesome products, then you’re going to use them either way.”

But O’Kelley also believes that strategic use of AI on the front end can reduce emissions down the line. And he still sees the guidelines as a force for change, he said in a recent LinkedIn video.

“This is the first time that we’ve had all of the major channels with actual formulas and measurement that you could use to do omnichannel measurement of the sustainability impact of a brand. I think it’s a pretty big deal.”

So, what’s the end goal for the sustainability cause?

“I anticipate a future where I want all my inventory to be brand-safe and sustainably sourced, and then I look at price and performance within that,” Hannah Mirza, founder and CEO of the Responsible Marketing Agency, previously told The Current.