Fastly joins DIMPACT coalition to track digital emissions

Fastly has joined digital sustainability coalition DIMPACT, becoming the first edge cloud platform provider to participate in the group.

The move brings Fastly into a coalition focused on science-based ways to measure and reduce the environmental impact of digital media delivery. DIMPACT helps companies assess emissions linked to streaming, publishing, and other online media products.

As digital media consumption grows, scrutiny of emissions across data networks and content delivery systems has increased, particularly within Scope 3 greenhouse gas accounting. Those emissions fall outside a company's direct operations and are often difficult to measure because they span multiple service providers, networks, and end-user devices.

Fastly's role in DIMPACT will focus on contributing edge network data, infrastructure experience, and its methods for emissions calculation and reporting. That information could help media and publishing groups better understand the carbon footprint of distributing digital content.

Facilitated by SLR Consulting, DIMPACT brings together organisations seeking a common framework for measuring digital emissions. The coalition aims to align companies and policymakers around research-backed methods while sharing data and practical resources across the sector.

Measurement challenge

One of the central challenges in digital sustainability is that emissions are generated across a chain of systems rather than in one place. Content moves from origin servers through networks and edge infrastructure before reaching consumer devices, so accurate calculation depends on visibility at each stage.

The issue has become more pressing as online traffic grows and companies face investor, regulatory, and internal pressure to account for indirect emissions. For media, streaming, and publishing businesses, the carbon cost of content delivery is now part of broader environmental reporting and procurement decisions.

Jason Bell, Director at SLR Consulting and Executive Sponsor of DIMPACT, said Fastly's participation would add a missing layer of operational insight.

"We're thrilled to welcome Fastly to the DIMPACT initiative. Their participation strengthens DIMPACT's ability to advance a more accurate, data-driven approach to measuring and reducing digital emissions," Bell said.

"Accurately calculating digital emissions requires a deep understanding of every hop data takes from the origin to the end-user device. Fastly's expertise at the edge fills a crucial piece of the puzzle, moving the industry closer to a transparent, standardised blueprint for digital decarbonization."

The reference to "every hop" reflects a technical and accounting challenge at the centre of the digital emissions debate. While many companies can estimate the energy use of their own data centres or cloud services, far fewer can precisely attribute the impact of network transfer and edge delivery.

Edge data

Fastly's entry into the coalition is notable because edge providers operate close to end users and handle large volumes of web and media traffic. That position can provide detailed operational data on how content is routed, cached, and delivered, which can improve estimates of energy use and related emissions.

Fastly linked its participation to broader shifts in internet traffic, including growth in AI-generated content and services. As those trends increase the volume of data being transmitted and processed, industry groups have been seeking more consistent ways to compare and reduce environmental impact.

Fastly's sustainability lead said the company sees a need for more detailed data to support those efforts.

"As digital content, including AI-generated traffic, continues to reshape the internet, we want to empower the digital media sector with the granular data and actionable insights needed for companies to understand and optimise their digital footprints. We are committed to industry-wide collaboration to ensure the internet of the future is not just faster and more secure, but also more sustainable," said Eoghan Kelly, who leads Sustainability at Fastly.

"We're looking forward to collaborating with DIMPACT participants and supporting the industry in moving towards the decarbonisation of digital content distribution."

DIMPACT's work comes as businesses across technology and media face growing expectations to quantify environmental impact beyond their own facilities. For digital products, that often means examining not only computing workloads but also transmission, storage, content formats, and user behaviour.

Fastly is best known for providing edge services used to deliver websites, applications, and online media. Its customer base includes large internet and media brands, putting it in a position to supply traffic and delivery data that could help DIMPACT members refine digital carbon accounting models.

For DIMPACT, adding an edge infrastructure participant broadens the range of industry input into its methodology. For Fastly, membership places it inside a coalition working to shape how digital emissions are measured across a fragmented supply chain.

As Bell put it, the challenge is building "a transparent, standardised blueprint for digital decarbonization."