The stalemate of sustainability: Who holds the responsibility of cutting carbon from digital ads?

As Earth Day 2024 is marked today, finger pointing is still prevailing over taking action in the effort to make digital advertising more sustainable. 

Publishers say there is only so much supply path optimization they can do before it impacts their revenue. Meanwhile advertisers and brands say they can only shift budgets so far towards greener media until the data exists to prove lower-carbon campaigns perform just as well as traditional campaigns. And DSPs are held to the KPIs that their clients are demanding, though some are working to push dollars into greener avenues. 

What results is a stalemate of sorts, waiting for someone to jump first and take the blow so that the rest of the digital advertising industry can follow when a revenue hit is no longer a risk. 

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