As the ad industry works to bring carbon emissions to net zero, there have been quite a few hurdles—from measurement standards and cost analysis to criticism of fossil fuel clients. But a new study from Magna has linked higher audience metrics with lower carbon emissions. 

According to the Magna study, the longer a digital ad is viewed on a page, the lower the carbon emissions created as a result. A spot that was in view for 10 seconds, for example, produced 64% less carbon emissions than a spot that was in view for five seconds.

The study also found that ads that ranked the highest in performance indicators such as in-view time, in-view rate and screen real estate saw 20% higher engagement scores and 83% lower emissions compared to ads with low performance indicators. 

This inverse correlation between in-view time and carbon emissions is likely related to ad load on a page, according to Martin Bryan, global chief sustainability officer at Mediabrands. The more ads that load, the more times servers are pinged and the greater the emissions generated. More competing ads also divide viewers’ attention, lowering view time. 

“It’s intuitive when you think about the drivers of emissions,” Bryan said. “Within media operations, it’s often things that add clutter to the experience for the end consumer.

The study, conducted by Magna’s Media Trials in conjunction with Oracle and using Scope3 emissions data, analyzed more than 1 billion impressions across 55 countries through live campaign tracking. The findings were further stress tested using AI-based, predictive eye tracking on about 350 display ads that appeared on 100 U.S. websites. The Scope3 carbon emissions model, which calculates the total grams of carbon dioxide released from digital impression delivery (gCO2e), was the standard measurement used for the study. 

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“It is critical for us to prove that the foundational belief we have that purpose and profit actually work well together,” Bryan said. “Sustainability is a vitally important facet of our business model, and this research reveals how we can foster more environmentally friendly practices in the advertising industry without sacrificing attention metrics.”

The IPG-owned agency also found that eliminating impressions that don’t comply with the Media Rating Council standards will reduce 6% of carbon emissions generated by online advertising. For context, this is equivalent to the carbon emissions made by 34,144 cars in a year, according to a Statista digital ad impression report. This includes video and display ads that run below the page break and are out of view when a page loads—which advertisers don’t pay for anyway. 

Another way advertisers can help the planet is by placing static ads instead of animated ones. On mobile devices, the study revealed 34% fewer carbon emissions for static ads than animated, and 16% fewer on desktops. 

The study comes as the public is increasingly critical of the environmental impact of the products and services they use. Programmatic advertising alone generates 215,000 metric tons of carbon emissions a month, across the U.S., Germany, Great Britain, France and Australia, according to the Scope3 State of Sustainability Report for the first quarter of 2023. 

Bryan hopes that continued measurement of emissions and viewability will drive behavior change for both the buy and sell sides. By shifting spend to publishers that implement best practices, marketers can lower emissions and increase attention on their ads.  

“This information can inform the action we want to see, which is avoiding non-MRC compliant impressions, those wasted impressions that account for 6% of total inventory,” he said. “While we may not pay for that as marketers, we’re certainly still generating those emissions, which is goofy.”