Stack slicer: GroupM investment chief gives Australian publishers '12-24 months' to cut emissions as brands push for carbon-based buying, sustainability marketplaces
Seb Rennie: An offer he couldn't refuse.
GroupM investment chief Seb Rennie has urged publishers to move on decarbonisation. The market will "start to make serious investment decisions based on carbon footprint" within the next 12-24 months, he told IAB Australia's Measure Up conference. Rennie predicted sustainability-focused private marketplaces will start to figure locally, with the firm launching its carbon calculator before the year end. Publishers may need to streamline their adtech to curb emissions, per Rennie, but measuring carbon outputs now, with the threat of losing out on revenues, can help build the business case to make those changes.
What you need to know:
- GroupM investment chief Seb Rennie has urged publishers to get cracking on measuring carbon emissions – and cutting them.
- He said a significant chunk of advertisers will likely be making carbon-based investment decisions within 12-24 months.
- GroupM-owned Essence has launched a sustainability private marketplace in the UK. Rennie said similar marketplaces will likely follow in Australia.
- Digital media supply chains may end up shorter as agencies and publishers look to cut carbon – cutting out middleware and middlemen is seen as one of the fastest ways to reduce emissions.
- Rennie said commercial imperatives could help publishers build business cases for making changes to their adtech and suppliers.
Within the next 12-24 months we will see carbon emissions being much more important topic in how people allocate expenditure. Sections of the advertiser community will start to make serious investment decisions based on carbon footprint.
GroupM Australia investment chief Seb Rennie has put publishers on notice as clients and the WPP-owned holdco put pressure on media companies to cut carbon so that they can hit their own commitments, increasingly tied to corporate financial reporting and investment criteria.
Speaking at IAB Australia's Measure Up conference, Rennie reiterated that WPP can’t hit its 2025 and 2030 targets without publishers also decarbonising – because by placing client ads on publisher properties, GroupM becomes indirectly responsible for those emissions. Classed as ‘scope 3’ emissions, those ads – across all media channels – make up more than half of WPP’s entire footprint.
GroupM’s Essence last month launched a dedicated ‘sustainability marketplace’ in the UK, essentially a private marketplace including only publishers with some demonstrable carbon and sustainability credentials.
Rennie said a similar marketplace in Australia would be a “natural extension … I’d be very surprised if it didn’t happen”. He added publishers must start measuring and reducing carbon emissions if not already doing so as advertisers show increasing appetite to buy media on sustainability metrics.
GroupM global execs have been clear on how this will play out – and are telling advertisers to "be prepared to move money".
The message we are taking to media partners is: start measuring. If you need to make adjustments to your business … if you find you need to reduce the number of SSPs you work with … that process can help make the commercial case to do so. But you need to do that now, because a lot of people are going to start moving on this quite quickly.
