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Detailed walkthrough of calculations

Entity Definitions

Channels

Device Types

Network Types

Video Player

Ad Format

Sample Ad Formats:

300x250 programmatic banner
30 second audio inserted into a podcast
15 second outstream video
Native product carousel

Property

Ad Platform

Placement

Delivery Row

Defaults

Conventional model data transfer by network type

The Scope3 values below are from GMSF 1.2. SRI values from SRIxAD database 2.1, original source ADEME_220830_v1.4 (now considered outdated).

Power model data transfer by network type

From Carbon impact of video streaming (Carbon Trust), Table 5; and calculated here

Mobile to fixed ratios by country

From ITU Data Hub (2024 data), these ratios do not apply to TV and Smart Speakers for which a specific default_percent_mobile_by_device_type is set.

Video player characteristics

Default video player size from GMSF 1.2

Media size

Based on YouTube recommendations, Wikipedia

Device size

From common devices (Quad HD 27” monitor, iPhone 13, Nexus 5X, iPad Air 1/2, iPad 2/3, Nexus 9, 1080P TV). Note: We use the software resolution, not the hardware resolution, to avoid underestimating the actual visual coverage of the ad displayed on screen.

Device energy use and embodied emissions

See Consumer Devices

Time in view for non-video ads

Default in view time from GMSF 1.2

Ad platform defaults

Observations from various channels and CDN / Edge Node emission factors from GMSF 1.2

Channel and device type mappings

The default ad formats for the Web and App channels are based on the GMSF 1.2 defaults for creative payload.

Broadcasting defaults

Creative storage defaults

Emission factors from GMSF 1.2, along with assumptions on average distribution per storage type, default multipliers to estimate the required storage space based on the delivered creative size and default impressions per creative.

Asset size defaults

Classic OOH defaults

DOOH defaults

Lookups from external sources

Carbon intensity by country, region, and UTC Date/Time

Providers should clearly and publicly document:
  • Which data provider is used for carbon intensity data (for instance, WattTime or ElectricityMaps)
  • What carbon intensity metric is used (marginal vs average)
lookup_carbon_intensity_gco2e_per_kwh(country, region, utc_datetime) should look up the carbon intensity in gCO2e based on 100-year global warming potential (GWP100) from a database at no less than hourly granularity. lookup_carbon_intensity_quality(country, region) should return the quality of the underlying grid mix data on a scale of 1-5 per Model Quality.

Fallbacks

We use all data we have available on every single request but in many situations we may lack some information, for this we have a series of fallbacks to be able to provide reasonable estimates in most situations. To determine network when it’s not submitted we calculate costs associated to network type as a weighted average of the fixed and mobile usage in the country (if available) or worldwide. We can also generally determine the channel from the property or when that is ambiguous but we have device information we fall back to a default channel by device.

Calculating Emissions

Tech Manipulation - Creative Storage

Creative Delivery - Data Transfer

For all channels other than CTV/BVOD, use the conventional model:
If data transfer is provided in the delivery row, use it:
Otherwise, calculate data transfer:
For CTV/BVOD, use the power model:

Creative Delivery - Platform

Creative Delivery - Consumer Device

Media Delivery - Data Transfer

Determing the session seconds for a single impressions
For all channels other than CTV/BVOD, use the conventional model:
For CTV/BVOD, use the power model:

Media Delivery - Consumer Device

Media Delivery - Corporate

Ad Selection - Platform

Ad Selection - Data Transfer

Model Quality