Ozone launches ECOzone

Ozone – a UK digital advertising platform built for brands by publishers – has announced the launch of a new carbon emission measure called ECOzone, which will calculate the carbon footprint of campaign delivery for activity run through the platform’s Managed Service capability.

Ozone says that this latest initiative is the first stage in their plan for carbon net zero campaign delivery by 2030, with a short-term aim of providing greater transparency and accountability to agencies and advertisers. ECOzone measurements will initially focus on the efficiency of Ozone’s platform in delivering premium publisher impressions to advertisers, many of whom are already focused on delivering more carbon efficient creatives. The metrics will be included in every managed service post campaign analysis delivered by the business with a staggered roll out across Q3 with a formal launch Q&A session with agency partners planned for early August.

ECOzone measurements are calculated using actual emissions data collected from Ozone’s cloud partners – Ozone’s primary source of CO2 raw data. A weekly average figure based on the amount of CO2 used to deliver each impression is calculated from a dataset verified by independent environmental consultancy Green Element, as part of a full audit of the Ozone business. Each campaign is then factored by this amount to give a bespoke CO2 measurement for that activity.

The company says the ECOzone initiative is the first customer-facing activity from Ozone’s extensive work to measure and reduce carbon emissions across its owned platform. In 2022 alone, while the number of bid requests received by Ozone increased three-fold, engineering expertise ensured that the average CO2 per billion bid requests reduced by 52%.

This launch represents a first step for ECOzone measurement and is focused on Ozone’s managed service business, accounting for a significant proportion of its total premium revenue. Future initiatives will include bespoke measurements for Ozone’s Deals and Connect products to provide a total view of emissions across Ozone’s owned platform.

Dora Michail-Clendinnen, chief strategy officer at Ozone said, “We’re excited to launch ECOzone to provide a more granular, robust and transparent view of the carbon footprint of Ozone's managed service campaigns. We have deliberately focused on the element of campaign delivery that we have direct control over, to provide advertisers with the reassurance that campaign delivery is as carbon efficient as possible across the premium web.

"Creating a more sustainable advertising ecosystem has always been core to Ozone’s existence, and we have long believed that working more directly with publishers or publisher-owned platforms like our own is key to that. We are proud to offer advertisers and agencies a more direct way to reach audiences – responsibly and sustainably – across the premium web, and we believe ECOzone represents a great first step towards a transparent and real-world measure that works for both conscious brands and premium publishers."