The Need for Sustainable Digital Design
Digital advertising contributes 32% to the average consumer’s digital footprint and can be 93% more environmentally friendly than traditional media, but it still has an environmental impact.
The balance of greenhouse gas emissions caused by humans and the global effort to reduce this and has become top headline larger organizations. Consumers are increasingly demanding and considering during their purchasing decisions weather brands are acting responsible. As a great example, carefully planned advertising is becoming increasingly important within the digital world.
Data Centers and Their Environmental Impact
Data centers, the engines of our digital experiences, consume a huge amount of energy for cooling and operation, significantly contributing to greenhouse gas emissions. But the impact does not stop there.
There is no precise data on ChatGPT, but it is important to know that the operation of large language models (LLM) requires a huge amount of computing power. According to reports, OpenAI may rely on thousands of A100 servers, each of which consumes around 3000 watts. Thus, each search we do with artificial intelligence uses about ten times more energy than a traditional Google search using keywords.
Digital Advertising and Its Environmental Impact
When it comes to keywords, it is also important to highlight digital advertising as one of the most energy-intensive digital processes.
High-resolution video-based advertising and streaming services further increase this negative impact, as they require significant bandwidth and processing power from data centers and user devices. Uploading a video ad is like putting up a digital poster. Hosting, streaming, analyzing the users behavior uses a significant amount of energy in the huge data centers.
So, if the target groups are not sufficiently defined in marketing campaigns and the ads are also delivered to those who would not be interested in them at all, then it leads to wasteful campaigns, which further increases the negative environmental footprint.
Temu: A Case Study of Excessive Marketing
Among the high-volume marketing campaigns, Temu from China has stood out in recent times. Temu’s marketing budget increased significantly in 2023, by some estimates by 1000%, reaching somewhere around $480 million. At the beginning of the year, the New York Times published an article that in 2023 the Chinese played around 1.4 million ads on Google’s platforms, and according to Meta’s advertising reports, at least 26,000 different graphic ads appeared on Facebook and Instagram pages. This huge media turmoil similar of the flooding of rice fields has significant environment impact because regardless of the quality of the products sold, the digital ads played to a wide-range of audience already have a drastic impact.
Sanofi: A Company Taking Sustainability Seriously
I recently had the opportunity to engage in a fascinating conversation with Prasad Ghag, the Global Head of Media, Digital and Strategic Planning at Sanofi CHC. Sanofi’s vision for the future is to “build a healthier, more resilient world.” This involves the protection of natural ecosystems within their business operations, including marketing activities. Their goal is to strike a balance between reaching their target audience and selecting media channels maximizing positive outcomes for their target audience.
About the author:
Let’s make things #zSofisticated!
Zsofia Raffa is a global digital marketing strategist with a journalist’s heart! With over 15 years of rocking the marketing world, she’s helped brands like Kodak Alaris, NVIDIA, Black Rock, and Lufthansa to shine digitally.
She’s all about turning data into stories that wow. As a regular newspaper writer, Zsofia knows how to make numbers turning into capturing attention. LinkedIn is her special field – she’s mastered the art of social selling, lead generation, and turning employees into brand ambassadors.
📧 Do you like my blog and you have not subscribed to my newsletter yet? Then it’s time to be up-to-date with #zSofisticated! Then click here
