ADWEEK Reporters Share Their Favorite Stories of 2024

Publishers Reeling From Carbon Emissions ‘Shakedown’

I loved working on this piece. It came from a comment made at lunch (about publishers getting screwed over again by adtech, but in the name of giving buyers more eco-friendly options, so a new take on the blocklist debate). And after digging just a little, I found so many people who were really riled up about the situation. There’s definitely tension: Publishers need to do more to reduce carbon emissions, but many didn’t know they were being blocked by third parties, so they couldn’t fix it anyway. After this story came out, at least one of the third parties changed their policies so that publishers were more in the loop. —Lucinda Southern