The Digital Media Industry is increasingly being held accountable for its environmental impact. Discussions around ESG, Green Media, Digital Carbon Foot-printing and the responsibility that companies have to minimise the effect of their ‘Dirty Data’ is shifting from a mild hubbub to a dull roar.
In this episode you introduce to you the new show and to the concepts of ESG, Sustainability, the Green Media Movement and the IAB's new committee aimed at tackling the digital media industry's de-carbonisation challenge.
This podcast is brought to you by The Digital Distillery
Written by Ara Almada
Produced & Engineered by Phil McDowell
Executive Producer Nadia Koski
Project Managers Dennis Kirschner & Stefanie Leonardi
You can contact The Digital Distillery on podcast@the-digital-distillery.com or visit our website & check out our other podcasts
There is a lot of uncertainty at the moment in the Digital Media landscape but one thing is for sure. Conscious consumerism is in, and companies that aren’t getting the message….are on their way out.
Sustainability is a huge driving force behind Stakeholders’ decisions of where to put their dollars and importantly, outlines the steps governments and companies need to take in order to simply maintain a healthy and livable planet.
And previous, feeble attempts by organisations at merely appearing to be green are no longer cutting it.
There is also a lot of confusion and misuse of the various terms, ESG, CSR, and Sustainability for example among the public, the Media, and even the industry itself.
In this Mini-Series, brought to you by The Digital Distillery and with the help of Sustainability Expert Ara Almada, we are going to break down the core issues and topics under the heading of Sustainability and specifically the more recent ‘Green Media’ movement, so that you can be more informed about the nuances and nooks and crannies, of this all-important subject.
For the sake of an introduction and overview of the field in general, I have put together a bit of background for you, starting with Environmental, Social & Corporate Governance or ESG for short.
So the practice of ESG in the business world actually began in the 60s where, due to public pressure, investors started excluding stocks or even entire industries from their portfolios if they had the perception of performing unsightly activities. Think Tobacco production or involvement in the South African apartheid regime.
Today it remains aligned with ethical considerations but the field has expanded to consider financial aspects as well with many investors now looking to integrate ESG factors into their traditional financial analysis.
The Environmental component of ESG includes topics such as Climate change, Natural resources, Pollution & waste as well as environmental opportunities.
The social looks at human capital, product liability, stakeholder opposition and social opportunities whereas the governance aspect is predominantly focused aroun corporate behaviour.
These are all topics that we will be looking into in more detail in the upcoming episodes
Green Media refers to the role that the media (specifically digital media) plays in impacting the environment as a whole. This includes its role in the education and communication surrounding environmental issues, how it can encourage the community to actively engage in climate change adaptation and harm reduction activities and how it can help protect the environmentsustainibly in order to prevent a climate crisis.
This stuff is important. And it affects us all. So it is critical that we keep informed so that we can make these critical decisions in our work and personal lives, that ultimately, could be the difference between a healthy, livable planet, or something else entirely.
Now some have palmed this off as just being green-washing by another name but it goes a bit deeper than that. With the increasingly informed and critical eye of the industry’s stakeholders Digital Media & Advertising are really starting to take notice and show that they are taking the issues seriously with more transparency surrounding the actual impact of digital activities as well as more investment in effectively reducing and compensating those impacts.
In light of this trend, the Interactive Advertising Bureau IAB Europe has recently established a new sustainability standards committee with the aim of unifying industry leaders in the area. And are in the process of establishing a set of practical standards to help the Digital Advertising Industry with its newfound decarbonisation mission.
The true impact of digital and the internet on the environment is quickly being revealed, with some estimates putting its overall environmental impact at as high as 4% or in other words, if the internet were a country, it would be placed 5th between Russia and Japan as biggest global contributors to carbon emissions.
In order to tackle these numbers, IAB Europe's new committee will produce a Green Media standard, composed of practical and measurable steps that participants can implement to decarbonize their digital media.
It’s kinda scary…. But there’s hope as well. As people become more conscious of making more informed purchase and voting decisions, and companies and governments make it easier for them to do so, then we just might be able to turn this thing around.
Join us in two weeks' time as we hear from Ara Almada on the subtle but important differences between ESG, CSR, and Sustainability on our new show, Green About Media.