Survey: Majority of marketers now tracking carbon impact
January 22, 2025

FreeWheel, a Comcast company and technology platform for the video advertising industry, has released findings from the fifth edition of its European Marketers Survey, in collaboration with CoLab Media Consulting, which aims to uncover agencies’ and advertisers’ spending priorities and marketing objectives for 2025, as well as their perspectives on sustainability in advertising.
The survey revealed that almost 60 per cent of marketers say they are already tracking the carbon cost of their digital marketing campaign, with the UK (62 per cent) and Germany (61 per cent) leading the group.
Noticeably, the study shows how marketers in Italy, the UK, France, Germany and Spain (EU5) are keen to investigate the operational and technological aspects of ad delivery to drive efficiency. Two-thirds (66 per cent) said that it is important or very important to optimize and reduce the intermediaries involved in the transactions and see Supply Path Optimisation (SPO), i.e. finding the shortest path from buyers to inventory acquisition, as a meaningful way to reduce the carbon impact of advertising campaigns. Indeed, a drive to efficiency does not just enable marketers to get more out of their marketing budgets, it also reduces environmental impact.
Overall, almost three out of five EU5 marketers (59 per cent) think sustainable advertising is important to their business, however, this priority has seen a decline from 77 per cent since the study started in 2020. The challenging economic climate in Europe is putting marketers under pressure to deliver more with less, which could explain the drop in prioritisation of sustainability.
This is reflected when looking at industry sectors, as there is a correlation between the sectors with optimism for increased marketing spend and those placing greater importance on environment sustainability.
Across the different sectors surveyed, those that see sustainable advertising as most important are media and entertainment (73 per cent), travel & tourism (73 per cent), and Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) (70 per cent); marketers in these sectors were also the most optimistic towards an increase in net marketing spend in 2025.
Approximately half of the marketers (47 per cent) have set a target date to reach carbon neutrality or net zero.
Of those that have set a target, 59 per cent believe they will hit their target within the next five years. In fact, 85 per cent expect to reach their target by the end of this decade, similar to previous years, indicating that while sustainability might not appear to be at the top of the priorities, marketers are still very much aligned with their goals.
Additionally, a quarter of the marketers surveyed confirmed that they have committed to set Science-Based Targets in line with the SBTi initiative to achieve Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions targets and therefore are looking at the whole value chain – a likely impetus for identifying and engaging intermediaries in Supply Path Optimisation.
“The survey highlights an increasingly thoughtful and realistic approach to sustainability; taking into account both the challenges of sustainability and the opportunities to optimise,” commented Emmanuel Josserand, Senior Director, Brand, Agency, and Industry Relations at FreeWheel. “Collaboration with industry partners and continuous innovation in advertising technologies are essential to the future of sustainability in advertising. Ultimately, the path forward demands strategic integration of sustainability into every aspect of marketing operations.”