As Climate Week NYC wraps up, we’re provided an opportunity to reflect not only on our own sustainability journey, but also how we can continue to encourage digital advertising to become more sustainable.
This year, Climate Week CEO Helen Clarkson centered her opening remarks centered around this year’s theme: We Can. We Will.
The area of sustainability can feel incredibly overwhelming. It can seem as though one group’s efforts are too small to make a meaningful impact or that the process of determining which actions make a difference is too complicated and labor-intensive.
However, as Clarkson began her opening remarks, “We can, because we know that the change we need is entirely possible.”
To illustrate this, Clarkson cited the advancement leaps made in solar energy and electric cars as proof that not only is change possible but that it also makes good business sense to invest in sustainability.
Corporate trailblazers in sustainability have a unique opportunity to make real change, continued Clarkson. When early adopters committed to renewable energy, and thereby drove the demand, solar energy became the “cheapest electricity in history.” The same goes for electric cars, which soared from novelty to 14 percent of all new car sales.
OpenX has already shown the same: We endeavored to reduce our emissions by 90 percent against a base reporting year of 2018 and in 2022 reduced our emissions by 95 percent. As a result of this work, we became the first company in the advertising, technology, and media sectors to receive independent verification that it has met the key requirements of the Net-Zero Standard established by the Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi).
As Clarkson indicated, we can make a meaningful impact on sustainability. But will we? This is where transparency becomes absolutely crucial.
With transparent goals, measurement and reporting, adtech is is equipped to hold each other accountable, to exchange new ideas and to ultimately make a meaningful impact on our own industry.
As businesses go beyond reducing their own emissions or committing to using more renewable resources, globally, they’re increasingly asking their supply chains to do the same, shared Clarkson. Through OpenX’s status as a verified Net-Zero and certified CarbonNeutral company, we’re already helping our partners achieve this.
Through strategic partnerships with companies like Scope3, OpenX is empowering brands and agencies to measure and reduce the carbon impact of their ad campaigns. We will continue to implement partnerships such as these to signal that a measurable impact on the carbon footprint of the advertising industry is indeed possible.
As OpenX CEO John Gentry noted earlier this year, “Real change comes from transparency, strategy, and process, and we’re continuing to share our story to encourage every company in our industry to measure and report their emissions so that we can collectively make strides towards a more sustainable future.”