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VIOOH announces 2023 carbon emissions significantly below industry benchmarks

VIOOH, a premium global digital out of home (DOOH) supply-side platform, has announced its full year emissions intensity (an objective measure of carbon efficiency) for 2023, which was below 0.35 grams CO2e per ad impression.

Working with its sustainability partner Cedara, the Carbon Intelligence Platform and a supporter of Ad Net Zero, the 2023 calculations aligned with the new Ad Net Zero Global Media Sustainability Framework (GMSF), the global advertising industry standard for emissions measurement for not only OOH but across all media channels, providing robust and comparable calculations. The full year average emissions intensity compares favourably vs initial industry benchmarks of 3.6g CO2e per impression for programmatic display, and 4.8g CO2e per impression for programmatic video.

The findings suggest that programmatic DOOH (prDOOH) with VIOOH is on average more than 10x carbon emission efficient compared with programmatic display, due to its broadcast nature and far less complex supply chain.

VIOOH’s recent State of the Nation 2024 reports that globally, whilst 62% of marketers recognise prDOOH’s ability to effectively deliver sustainable and eco-efficient reach, only 31% of marketers prioritise sustainability in their media decision-making process.

Jean-Christophe Conti, Chief Executive Officer at VIOOH, commented: “I We are pleased to now have our second full year calculation, showing that once again, buying DOOH programmatically through VIOOH provides a clear point of difference for advertisers seeking to make more sustainable media choices. 

“As a brand safe, fraud-free, broadcast media channel compatible with multi-channel programmatic strategies, prDOOH is not only an effective tool for advertisers in terms of branding and performance, but also one which supports an environmentally conscious choice in the media mix”.

David Shaw, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder at Cedara, said: “We are impressed with VIOOH’s continued commitment to transparent accountability and desire to understand the impact of prDOOH. VIOOH is helping to lead the way for brands who want to make more sustainable choices for their advertising. Only through proactive measures, like those adopted by VIOOH, can we contribute to a net zero future.” 

As part of its measurement process, Cedara not only analysed data sets from business operations, but also activity data from media delivery, data centres, and media owners, amongst others. Log-level bidstream data was included to accurately estimate emissions from programmatic delivery, in addition to accounting for factors including, but not limited to, server, network and screen use.

Due to the implementation of the new Ad Net Zero GMSF, it is not possible to provide a year-on-year comparison given the transition to an updated measurement standard.

The industry benchmarks are currently based off of the Ad Net Zero GMSF using industry default values from the SRI & Alliance Digitale framework, since the GMSF has yet to define any default values in their framework. The SRI & Alliance Digitale framework served as the foundation for the GMSF methodology for Digital.