Learn how sustainable programmatic advertising, using tools like GreenPMPs, allows brands to reduce their carbon footprint while simultaneously driving higher campaign performance and meeting consumer expectations.
As AI and the evolving geopolitical landscape accelerate the scale and complexity of digital advertising, it’s tempting to assume sustainability is taking a back seat. But in reality, brands are rethinking media buying at its core, cutting carbon emissions by eliminating inefficiencies in the supply chain.
They’re also discovering something powerful: reducing waste doesn’t just lower environmental impact, it drives better performance.
In 2025, we saw strong adoption of GreenPMPs, our proprietary curated marketplaces that filter out high-emission inventory with a single activation. By removing low-value, carbon-intensive supply, advertisers are creating cleaner, more efficient media buys that often outperform traditional programmatic strategies.
GreenPMPs began with a simple realization: programmatic inefficiencies are not just wasteful, they are also driving unnecessary carbon emissions.
In 2022, we partnered with Scope3 to launch the first GreenPMP, introducing a new way of buying media that makes sustainability part of the workflow. The idea was simple: measure the carbon footprint of campaigns and remove the inventory creating the most waste. By filtering out high-emission, low-value sites, GreenPMPs reduce environmental impact while streamlining media buys and often improving overall performance.
What started as a sustainability initiative quickly became a performance advantage. GreenPMPs now sit at the intersection of supply path optimization and carbon accountability. In 2025, 4,562 brands activated GreenPMPs with us, and nearly 20,000 advertisers incorporated them into Marketplace and Catalog Deals. Adoption grew sixfold in a single year, showing that reducing emissions can go hand in hand with smarter, more efficient advertising.
These numbers show that what started as a niche sustainability initiative is now becoming a mainstream strategy for brands looking to combine performance and purpose.
The impact is most visible in live campaigns:
Butler/Till’s adoption of GreenPMPs shows how sustainability and performance can scale together. By activating low-emission inventory and filtering out carbon-intensive placements, the agency reduced campaign emissions by 17% while improving key metrics, like viewability, CTR, and video completion rates. Optimizing the supply path for efficiency led to both lower carbon impact and stronger media outcomes.
CMI Media Group’s use of GreenPMP+ reflects the next step in sustainable media buying, where curated inventory drives gains in both carbon reduction and performance. By integrating GreenPMP+, CMI reduced total campaign emissions by 14% (and up to 48% for certain formats) while increasing CTR by 48% and video completion rates by 39%.
Together, these examples show that reducing emissions can align with more efficient, higher-performing media strategies.
The performance gains seen by agencies like Butler/Till and CMI are more than just line items on a spreadsheet—they represent a cleaner, faster experience for the end user. This aligns perfectly with a growing tension we’re seeing in consumer behavior, a "convenience resistance," if you will.
Our latest research reveals that as the internet becomes more essential for daily survival, the percentage of people willing to change their personal digital habits dropped from 75% in 2024 to 55% in 2026. While consumers are becoming more aware of their hidden digital footprint - with understanding of digital emissions surging from 20% to 38% in two years - they are increasingly unwilling to compromise on connectivity to fix the problem themselves.
Instead, the burden has shifted squarely onto the private sector. Nine out of ten consumers now look directly to brands to solve the sustainability crisis, and 60% trust brands more than governments to drive meaningful climate action. With 80% demanding greater transparency and 72% preferring brands that actively reduce their carbon footprint, the message is clear: the public wants brands to make the digital world cleaner on their behalf. Strategies like GreenPMPs aren't just technical optimizations; they are a direct response to a public that expects performance without the environmental cost.
GreenPMPs prove that sustainability and performance don’t have to compete; they can reinforce each other. As AI continues to reshape how media is planned, bought, and optimized, this balance becomes even more important. While AI introduces new scale and complexity, it also creates an opportunity to be more intentional about reducing inefficiencies across the supply chain.
For brands, this marks a shift in how success is defined. It’s no longer just about reach or efficiency in isolation. It’s about building smarter, more intentional systems that deliver results while minimizing unnecessary impact.
What began as a response to carbon concerns is quickly becoming a blueprint for better programmatic buying, where cutting waste, whether through tools such as GreenPMPs, smarter curation, or AI-driven optimization, drives stronger outcomes across the board.
Summary
En tant que Director of Marketing and Communications chez Equativ, Amy dirige les stratégies de contenu, de médias sociaux et de relations publiques propres à l'entreprise. En collaboration avec les parties prenantes de l'ensemble de l'organisation, elle écrit sur des sujets allant des innovations en matière de produits d'Equativ aux tendances générales de l'industrie.
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