Making the digital advertising ecosystem more sustainable has been a burgeoning topic for the past couple of years, but the biggest excuse that’s been holding back companies from making moves to actually reduce carbon emissions is the lack of standards around measuring emissions in the first place.

But the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) and Ad Net Zero aimed to remedy those concerns with its Global Media Sustainability Framework, launched ahead of the Cannes Lions Festival earlier this month.“

We’ve reached a bit of an inflection point to sort of say, ‘Let’s do the right thing by the industry, and make sure that there is a voluntary, flexible framework that basically can enhance transparency, drive consistency and introduce rigor in a way that drives confidence in the work,’” said Rob Rakowitz, co-founder and initiative lead at GARM.

On the latest episode of the Digiday Podcast, Rakowitz shared how the framework and standards came together and how their existence should influence the way stakeholders implement carbon cutting initiatives and measure carbon emissions in the advertising ecosystem going forward.