Sustainability has been one of the buzzwords of the past few years.

With the world getting warmer, oceans rising and an increased number of natural disasters, most people want to try and do their part to stop climate change.

But what role can marketing play in this vast and complex issue?

Jake Dubbins, co-founder of the Conscious Advertising Network said: “The industry needs to stop convincing itself that we can change the global corporate strategy of big polluters. We are way downstream from that. We need to be super honest that the industry drives growth, which drives emissions.”

“We need a very clear understanding of the future risks to entire sectors, especially food supply chains. We also need to consciously choose to invest in media that is reporting the climate crisis with rigour and the highest standards of journalism,” he added.

Adnetzero 

One way the industry can contribute, according to Frank Maguire, SVP of product marketing and sustainability at Equativ and Sharethrough, is by signing up to Ad Net Zero, a five-point action plan for advertisers, agencies and marketing firms.

“The industry is aligning behind initiatives like Ad Net Zero, and events such as the Green Media Summit are turning awareness into action,” said Maguire.

“Tools like Equativ’s GreenPMPs are making it easier to prioritise lower-emission inventory in programmatic buying, and carbon calculators are becoming more common to guide responsible media planning.”

However, Katie Drew, strategy director of Born Social said: “We’re finally having the right conversations, but talking isn’t enough; we need action. At Born Social, we are working to have sustainability baked into how we work.”

“As a B Corp, we’ve got dedicated task forces, we’re part of Change the Brief, and we’re rethinking shoots, being proud members of Ad Net Zero and partnering with Green Screen to help reduce the advertising industry’s carbon emissions and environmental impacts. Progress over perfection, but always moving forward.“

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Digital Marketing

It is often suggested that to be sustainable, companies should go digital. But is it really better for the environment?

The average email produces around 0.3g of CO2 to send. And it all adds up. According to Mike Berners-Lee in his book How Bad are Bananas?: The Carbon Footprint of Everything’, yearly email usage could account for as much as 150m tonnes CO2e.

Drew said media is not “clean” just because it’s not printed.

“All those impressions and assets add up. Media efficiency, smarter targeting and fewer but better assets are important. A more sustainable strategic approach to digital marketing means doing more with less, without losing impact.”

Dubbins said: “Increasingly, digital advertising is responsible for two harms. The first is the huge increase in the energy and water use in data centres required to power AI creative iterations and media buying. The advances in AI will supercharge this and drive-up emissions.”

“The second is, our advertising funding climate denial and disinformation. The lack of transparency in the ad tech ecosystem means brands with net-zero transition plans and science-based targets are funding dangerous narratives about extreme weather, denial of climate change itself, and lies about the solutions to the climate crisis.”

However, Pamela Noakes, sustainability director at M+C Saatchi Group said email has the potential to be more sustainable in the future than print-based advertising, such as leaflets and posters.

“Digital advertising has some real advantages when it comes to sustainability, it’s easier to track and measure, which means we can see where the impact is.

“This means that we can work with suppliers across the digital value chain (from content creation to ad delivery and tracking) to help ensure that, as processing power requirements increase, they are increasingly powered by renewable energy and use closed-loop water systems.”

But she said “true sustainability isn’t just about the channel, it’s about what we’re promoting”.

“If the product or service isn’t sustainable, no amount of digital efficiency can offset that. The message and the medium both matter.”

So what more can the industry do?

According to Noakes, “the sweet spot is in the mindset”.

“Sustainability can’t be the thing we bolt on at the end—it has to shape our decisions from the very beginning. Not just because it’s the right thing to do (it is!), but also because it makes long-term commercial sense, it’s a cliché, but there really are no profits on a dead planet.

“This means putting sustainability front of mind when we are deciding on which clients to pitch for, when we’re advising clients, when we produce campaigns and when we measure impact.”

Maguire said: “We need to move from intent to accountability. That means standardized carbon measurement, lower-emission media defaults, and industry-wide adoption of frameworks like Ad Net Zero’s Global Media Sustainability Framework.”

“Marketers can also make an impact by integrating sustainability into campaign KPIs, not just as a CSR add-on but as a core performance metric,” he added.