Despite the deprecation of third-party identifiers and global economic turbulence, sustainability is a key focus for professionals within the Japan and Asia-Pacific (JAPAC) region. This is according to a new research report, Sustainability in Advertising - JAPAC 2023, published today by ExchangeWire, in association with OpenX.

The overriding majority of those surveyed deemed sustainability metrics to be important to their business, while simultaneously converting these theoretical applications into tangible business outcomes, with nearly half (47%) of all marketing budgets across the JAPAC region set to be allocated to carbon-neutral partners within the next year. 

Building upon studies conducted annually through 2020-2022, media professionals across the digital advertising supply chain in Australia, India, Indonesia, and Japan were surveyed. The importance of programmatic advertising within the region continues to grow hand-in-hand alongside efforts to reduce carbon emissions, with 64% of surveyed professionals reporting an increase in programmatic spend and revenues.

“Sustainability is an incredibly important initiative for the JAPAC market as a whole. As a result, we’ve seen earlier adoption of sustainability measures and actions across both buy-and-sell-sides, with clear expectations and timeframes for when these are to be implemented,” commented John Harvey Faurholt, director, advertising and retail media partnerships - JAPAC, China, Microsoft Advertising, “This has also been reinforced through legislation and policy changes, in addition to industry groups like the IAB, establishing clear guidelines, best practices, and framework. This holistic response has created a greater sense of urgency (and collaboration) to address an important initiative while minimising revenue impact or disruption.” 

Highlights from the report include:

• Nearly half of all marketing budgets within the region are set to be allocated to carbon-neutral partners within the next 12 months.
• Nearly half of respondents across JAPAC stated that they have set Science-Based Target initiative (SBTi) goals to reduce their carbon emissions.
• Concern over fraud and quality-related issues, such as the use of MFA sites within advertising, remains high across the JAPAC region. Encouragingly, however, this has fallen since last year.
• Despite the market weathering the changes implemented by Apple on its mobile platform, the majority of the JAPAC programmatic industry is at least somewhat concerned about the upcoming privacy changes that Google is making across display and mobile.

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