Carbon Emissions Tracking For Digital Ads Broadens Scope
- by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, March 20, 2025
Global tech company XR will integrate advanced carbon emissions data directly into its platform through a partnership with Scope3, which focuses on decarbonizing media and advertising.
AI powers the tracking by analyzing emissions data, optimizing workflows, and automating sustainability decisions, helping brands to cut waste and align with environmental key performance indicators (KPIs). This shift moves sustainability from a reporting exercise to an integrated, proactive strategy across digital and soon, will expand to linear TV.
Brands now have the ability to analyze emissions by campaign, platform and geography to meet environmental key performance indicators (KPIs). This also aligns with the Global Media Sustainability Framework (GMSF).
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Google earlier this month released a project called Carbon Footprint for Google Ads in Europe, which will become widely available in the future.
The calculation follows the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, the global standard for carbon accounting. It also provides information on how to integrate Google emissions data estimates into a company’s emissions reports.
Digital and streaming advertising contribute to global carbon emissions through energy-intensive data centers, content-delivery networks and inefficient workflows.
One digital ad campaign can generate approximately 70 tons of CO — equivalent to the annual carbon footprint of seven individuals.
Estimates suggest digital advertising could account for up to 2% of global emissions.
The platform is called XRIQ. Carbon emissions measurement is now part of its creative intelligence suite that includes insights for content effectiveness, representation, and environmental impact based on AI.
The idea is to give brands greater creative control, seamless connectivity and actionable intelligence — enabling them to lead responsibly and make smarter decisions that drive meaningful business impact.
Scope3 and XR are working on an expansion into linear TV, to broaden the industry's ability to measure and reduce its environmental impact across all screens.
Agentic will also play a part in monitoring emissions. Scope3 in March launched the Agentic Media Platform to helps its partners build and sell agentic media products. Publishers, ad-tech platforms, curators and agencies to leverage expert AI agents and custom algorithms to deliver more effective media buying.
Amazon DSP became the first demand side platform to integrate with the Scope3’s Agentic Media Platform.
The Agentic Media Platform has a centralized hub to create and manage agentic media products to include connecting data, expert agents, and custom algorithms across Private Marketplaces (PMPs), programmatic campaigns, and direct buys. It provides access to third-party agents, and includes proprietary Scope3 media-quality data.
