How the digital ad industry is creating standards for sustainability

Advertisers are beginning to see the financial benefits of reducing the carbon emissions created in their digital advertising businesses, but there is still a long way to go before sustainability becomes a shared point of focus across the media and marketing industries.

Still, a lot of progress has been made by brands, agencies and publishers alike to at least begin measuring the scope of their carbon footprints. And the more carbon footprints are measured and discussed among digital advertising stakeholders, the easier it will be to create benchmarks and thresholds for the industry to ultimately reduce its impact on the environment. At least, that's how Kris Doerfler, head of innovation at CMI Media Group, sees it.

On the latest episode of the Digiday Podcast, Doerfler discusses how far the digital advertising ecosystem has come thus far in the journey to becoming more sustainable, and what's still left to accomplish — from helping smaller publications and brands make changes they can't make on their own, to creating shared standards for carbon emissions measurement.