Moving the money in advertising: Scope3

Measuring sustainability across the entire supply chain is important for businesses to have a complete view of their environmental framework success.

Digital Nation Australia spoke to Brian O’Kelley, CEO at Scope3, about how businesses can make informed decisions when it comes to their partnerships, channels and suppliers.

Scope3 is building a universal data set that is tracking the internet supply chain to give a clear view of the emissions produced through spending in advertising.

According to O’Kelley, “My belief, maybe it's naive or maybe it's cynical, I'm not sure, is that the only way to change behaviour, at least in the business world is to make the money shift. And this is a case where the folks who spend billions on advertising have the power to cause tens of millions of tonnes each year of carbon to be saved, to not go into the environment.”

However, tracking carbon emissions is not the only way to reflect a business’ sustainability, said O’Kelley, and organisations must consider the challenge more broadly. Scope3’s focus is to consider carbon only, to provide organisations with the data, so that they can then take a more holistic view of their environmental impact.

“That’s one I've been focusing on because it's almost like an outside view, holistic view of a supply chain is more accurate than trying to source through multiple layers of a supply chain to get data that no one really has any way.”

O’Kelley believes that technology plays a role in answering some of the world’s biggest sustainability questions, but ultimately he believes it comes down to people and their own ethical decision making.

“All the consequences of what they do not being driven only by profit are really the most important thing. So people always are the most important part of any business and any decision. And I think technology can give people better tools and better information, but it doesn't solve the problem.”