Research Summary: A Scoping Review of Methods to Measure the Energy and Carbon Footprint of Web Tracking and Advertising

A recent scoping review of academic literature identifies five distinct methodological approaches for measuring the energy and carbon footprint associated with web tracking and advertising. Despite growing attention to the environmental impact of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector, research in this specific area remains fragmented with inconsistent terminology, highlighting a need for more unified measurement strategies.

Why it matters

Understanding and accurately measuring the environmental impact of digital activities, such as web tracking and advertising, is crucial for developing sustainable digital strategies. This research highlights the current challenges in measurement consistency, which can impede effective policy-making and corporate accountability regarding carbon emissions in the digital economy.

Key insights

• The environmental impact of web tracking and advertising is a growing concern within the broader context of the ICT sector's increasing carbon footprint.
• Academic scholarship on measuring this impact is dispersed across various disciplines and lacks consistent terminology.
• The review analyzed 15 papers, identifying five primary methodological approaches: ad blocking, controlled environment, replaying ads, traffic flow analysis, and literature-derived estimation.
• The initial structured search on Google Scholar identified 46 articles, which was refined to a final corpus of 15 papers for detailed analysis.

Source

arXiv — Computers and Society — https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.19495