A New GenAI Carbon Calculator to Measure Sustainability Impact

‍New York, NY, 15 May 2025: Global leader in Gen AI marketing, The Brandtech Group, today releases a white paper that examines the environmental impact of using generative AI to create ads and marketing assets. It was created in collaboration with Scope3, the technology company that helps deliver safe, sustainable growth in media, advertising and AI, and was unveiled at the ANA Committee Meeting, ‘Privacy, Policy, and Planet: Understanding the latest in AI Laws and AI’s Impact on Sustainability’ in New York.

Alongside the white paper, Brandtech has created a carbon calculator to help marketers understand the impact of Gen AI use cases and with which they can instantly see changes they can make to lessen their emissions.

Led by Brandtech’s data consultancy business, fifty-five, this is the first report of its kind. This Phase 1 of the study focuses on two common marketing Gen AI use cases and measures the impact against two environmental metrics. Phase 2 will be released later this year with more use cases and additional metrics.

Brandtech Partner and Head of Emerging Technology Rebecca Sykes says: “As leaders in the Gen AI space, we have a responsibility to tackle the challenges that come with it and the environmental impact of using AI is a big question for enterprise-level marketers who will often have corporate commitments to achieve and adhere to. However, you cannot change what you have not measured, so our goal is to shed some light on this currently very opaque area.”

The use cases the report analyzes are static digital marketing campaigns (text-to-image Gen AI) and e-commerce product page content generation (text-to-text Gen AI). By using data from Brandtech’s market-leading Gen AI platform, Pencil, which aggregates all the main Gen AI foundation AI models, as well as conducting independent research, the study quantifies the electricity and embodied emissions associated with these processes. The second phase of the study will expand the analysis to include water and other emissions and will consider additional common marketing use cases.

Alongside the report, Brandtech has launched a carbon footprint calculator for text and image generation use cases, helping marketers measure the emissions of their Gen AI-powered workflows and make informed decisions about their environmental impact.

The Need for Greater Transparency

One of the study’s key findings is the lack of transparency from major Gen AI providers regarding the carbon footprint of their models. Without access to clear emissions data, companies and individuals using Gen AI cannot fully assess its environmental impact.

“Generative AI isn’t just changing marketing, it’s completely redefining what’s possible,” said Scope3 CEO Brian O’Kelley. “But to truly capitalize on this opportunity, we need to be measuring its environmental footprint – this research is building the foundation for us to have data to make informed decisions. It’s also the key to unlocking sustainable growth. Companies that measure and optimize their AI use from the start will build more efficient workflows and see real productivity gains. Having this data, positions marketers to achieve their business outcomes while using fewer resources.”

In addition to the measurement research, Brandtech is integrating technical mitigations into the Pencil platform, which will be rolled out in the coming months.

55’s sustainability director Ludovic Moulard says: “The main environmental issue with Gen AI is not the technology, it’s what we do with it and how we do it. We are convinced that almost all users would change how they use AI if they knew about the environmental impact of their interactions. That’s the purpose of our work here: get a sense of these impacts, make them visible to end users and corporations, and provide simple ways of significantly mitigating them.“

Separately,. Brandtech is also announcing a minority investment in Scope3. Founded in 2022, Scope3 is focused on helping organizations optimize their AI operations by reducing unnecessary energy consumption while maintaining peak AI performance.

The first report and the Gen AI carbon footprint calculator are available now.

Link here

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