Kroger to measure the carbon emissions impact of its retail media network

Kroger Precision Marketing is becoming the first retail media network to measure digital supply chain carbon emissions through Scope3, a firm that has been at the forefront of helping brands and publishers reduce their carbon emissions in digital ad buying. Under the partnership announced during Advertising Week New York, Kroger Precision Marketing will use Scope3’s open-source methodology and emissions model to measure the carbon impact by applying Kroger’s audience data to offsite media campaigns. Advertisers and agencies will then be able to make digital advertising decisions based on the results. “This is an investment on our part,” said Cara Pratt, senior VP, Kroger Precision Marketing. “Our media buyers will use Scope3’s measurement across the tech supply chain to further optimize and adjust where we're buying media. It’s our investment and then we’re going to give visibility into that. It’s very early on and the education is very real for everybody in this space. There is a lot of interest and energy to learn and I’m looking forward to seeing where the industry will go.” Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs Reducing carbon emissions in digital advertising not only has environmental benefits but has been linked to better campaign performance, too. “Running tens of millions of digital ad impressions only to reach thousands of relevant consumers is not sustainable for business or the environment,” Scope3 Chief Commercial Officer Brenda Tuohig said. In a time where brands are facing signal loss and concerns around the efficiency of programmatic buying, this makes reducing these carbon emissions that much more important, Pratt said. “We’re excited about really expanding upon the role that retail media can play to drive more performance impact overall for ads,” Pratt said. Scope3’s work coupled with Kroger Precision Marketing’s ability to identify what ads should be exposed to which audiences "can have an accelerated impact on reducing carbon emissions,” she said. Scope3 is led by Co-Founder and CEO Brian O’Kelley and executives including Chief Operating Officer Anne Coghlan, who leads the firm’s product, services and data science departments. Coghlan specifically led the creation of Scope3’s data set that models the carbon footprint of every digital ad impression and worked on the development of Climate Shield, a tool that integrates with demand-side platforms in the programmatic buying process to let media buyers block high-carbon publishers. Last month, Scope3 opened access to its platform, allowing anyone to see the carbon emissions of every website, mobile app and tech provider in the media supply chain. It has also raised $20 million to fund the further development of its platform. Since evaluating carbon emissions in digital advertising is so new, there is still no standard method for measuring these emissions. Agencies, marketers, publishers and other advertising entities are starting to make commitments to reduce these carbon emissions—WPP media investment group GroupM, for example, aims to reduce its digital supply chain carbon emissions by at least 50% by 2030—but measurement methods vary. Related: A guide to retail media networks Coghlan has told Ad Age that Scope3 is trying to future-proof its platform for eventual measurement standards that should come to the industry. “Our model is interoperable and can support different standards,” she said. For example, certain agencies do not include the measurement of carbon emissions associated with consumer devices. Advertisers that use the Scope3 platform can “choose to add consumer device emissions as the total or not depending on the standard that they're following,” Coghlan said. Many advertisers are still learning about digital supply chain carbon emissions and figuring out how to prioritize reducing them against other sustainability efforts they have underway, Pratt said. “There's no doubt that consumers want brands to get serious about climate,” Pratt said. “The reality is, there is a higher amount of waste just given the pure frequency on the ad serving side. What we have always wanted to do is tackle some of these tough problems. This is going to be an ongoing evolution of learning, adapting and optimizing with a new lens.” In June, Kroger Precision Marketing also became the first retail media network to support Ad Net Zero’s sustainability efforts. Subscribe to Ad Age Sign up now for the latest industry news and analysis Click here

Kroger to measure the carbon emissions impact of its retail media network

Featured Stories