Cutting Carbon Emissions Requires Group Effort for Ad Industry: Scope3’s Kaitlin Leary

MARCO ISLAND, FL – Because media and marketing activities consume energy, they have a carbon footprint that can be measured. As information about these activities becomes more available throughout different supply chains, companies can see how their work indirectly produces greenhouse gas emissions. Consulting firm Scope3 aims to bring more transparency to these environmental effects. “As brands have to start reporting those numbers to government bodies, it’s important that they can trust the data set,” Kaitlin Leary, head of global agency and brand partnerships at Scope3, said in this interview at the IAB’s Annual Leadership Meeting. “Scope3 is very focused on this. We need to have contributed data from all different parts of the ecosystem.” Scope3 is working to measure the greenhouse gas emissions for digital media channels, which rely on networked computers whose electricity partly comes from burning natural gas, oil and coal. “We’ve been really focused on that with our brand and agency partners,” Leary said. “What you can expect to see from Scope3 is a continued push to measure across all the digital channels.” Scope3 recently began measuring the carbon footprint of digital out of home advertising as brands sought more information about it. “It’s an imperative, not just a strategic imperative for everybody, but a human imperative, that we attack the climate crisis together,” Leary said. “Our goal as a company is to be the solution and the partner to help brands, agencies, and partners across the ecosystem reduce their carbon emissions.” You’re watching ‘Digital Media in Transition’, a Beet.TV Leadership Series at IAB ALM 2024 presented by Sharethrough. For more videos from this series, please visit this page.