Adaptive streaming specialist SeenThis is adopting a new cross-industry methodology for its Emissions Dashboard, a tool that enables advertisers to evaluate the carbon footprint of their digital marketing campaigns.

The updated Dashboard will employ a methodology developed by French professional organisation SRI (Syndicat des Régies Internet) and the French arm of the IAB, Alliance Digitale.

SeenThis originally developed its own methodology for assessing emissions from the creative delivery of digital marketing campaigns in 2021. The SRI and Alliance Digitale (SRIxAD) framework, like SeenThis' original methodology, takes into account direct energy consumption and embodied emissions across the life cycle of an ad. SeenThis said it's aligning with the SRIxAD methodology to push the industry towards standardisation.

The Dashboard measures data transferred per impression and other granular data points, allowing the quantification of total emissions for creative delivery, with grams of CO2e emitted per thousand impressions (gPM), and carbon cost of outcomes. SeenThis' granular data can also be input into other platforms, including those from GroupM, Scope3, Cedara or Impact+, to cover more parts of the life cycle of an ad.

Simon Johansson, Sustainability Lead at SeenThis, spoke about the framework developed by SRI and Alliance Digitale as the starting point.

“It scopes out the life cycle of online advertising and the distribution of creatives through servers, networks and onwards through to end-user devices, taking a bottom-up perspective, and allowing the use of very granular data, to quantify the emissions. It can be used also for those that don’t have this type of granular data, providing a database with conservative estimates so you don’t have to wait for perfect data to start calculating to see where your main emission sources are," he explained.

Johansson said the aim of SRI and Alliance Digitale is to encourage the industry to collaborate around improving sustainability reporting and credentials.

"There are still refinements needed to make it even better, but GARM [the Global Alliance for Responsible Media] and WFA [World Federation of Advertisers], together with Ad Net Zero, are working on aligning the industry around this, and we're putting our methodology into the knowledge bank with the aim of helping to improve the model still further," he added.

Directeur Générale at Alliance Digitale, Arthur Millet, expressed his enthusiasm about SeenThis adopting the framework.

“Sustainability in digital advertising is a key issue. By working together and aligning behind an agreed methodology, the industry can achieve better outcomes more quickly and more effectively,” he said.

Directrice Gédérale, SRI France, Hélène Chartier, said SeenThis' adoption of the SRIxAD framework demonstrated the high expectations for the marketing and media ecosystem for standardising carbon measurement methodology.

"This market alignment will hopefully accelerate concrete actions for reducing the carbon footprint of digital advertising," she said.

Established in 2017, SeenThis has been evolving screen experiences with its adaptive streaming technology, aiming to transform the distribution and climate impact of digital content.