How to Reduce Emissions in Advertising and Beyond

The following is an extract from Sustainable Advertising.

Getting your house in order begins with three key areas: reducing travel (specifically minimizing air travel), reducing fossil energy use and minimizing waste.

Any company striving for sustainable advertising will need to measure their own carbon footprints, reduce emissions from travel, energy and waste and account for all of these as part of their own reporting procedures. Finally, where remaining emissions cannot be removed, companies must offset these through renewal schemes.

Individual responsibilities

Everyone, from apprentices to upper management, has a role with responsibility; make sure you’re working for a company that is taking a sustainable approach to its own operations. If not, find out why not. It’s OK to ask what the plan is to make sure your employer is taking positive steps towards a more sustainable footing and pressure from employees will be an important part of expediting this change.

There are good reasons to do this beyond tackling climate change – you could help your company save money and be more attractive to prospective colleagues. Companies are increasingly open to these changes in operations if it means creating a more conscious and attractive workplace, so vigorously champion the mission of sustainability.

Don’t wait for someone else to call into question your business’ sustainability practices. You have the power to effect change at scale. The impacts of your actions may well extend far beyond the walls of your office or production studio, too; by putting sustainability at the heart of your operations, you’ll be creating a blueprint for others to follow and setting a new industry standard.

What does the data say?

Let’s look at the evidence. From 2017–2019, before Covid-19 changed working habits, UK advertising think tank Credos estimated the average annual operational carbon footprint of a UK advertising agency per employee to be 3.4 tonnes CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent). This was worked out by looking at operational carbon footprints for an organization and averaging this across the number of full-time employees and full-time equivalents.

When we say ‘operational’, we mean the energy and water from office buildings along with emissions from business travel. It is possible for any company to access precise information on operational data. From those, people can take practical action to reduce emissions, using their initial results as a base figure to improve upon. Also, by looking at an average for an individual, trade bodies representing an entire industry can scale that amount by the number of people working in an industry.

Interestingly, advertising’s operational footprint is comparable to other professional service sectors such as accountancy or law, which have similar office and travel practices. In total, Credos concluded that the annual operational GHG emissions for the whole UK industry, across all its sectors, is more than a million tonnes. Scale that globally and we have a huge number to take responsibility for.

For agencies, the beating heart of the industry, two emissions sources stand out:

1. Business travel (especially flights) which, based on the 2017–19 data, was typically just under 60 per cent of emissions.
2. Office energy usage, which is typically just under 40 per cent emissions.

Of course, Covid changed things drastically, for two years at least, but advertising and marketing services professionals still use energy to work and as lockdowns have been lifted around the world, people are returning to the office. The commute is back and business travel has returned.

So, what can be done?

Firstly, every advertising and marketing professional should be demanding that the energy they are using comes from a renewable energy source. This applies to the shared office you work in, but also to the office at home where many of us now spend a portion of our week.

One of the biggest single things that you can do is use less energy overall, switch to renewable energy if you haven’t already and urge your colleagues to do the same. If you’re met with a no, ask ‘why not?’ and work out a plan to change that as soon as you can. For those with access to infrastructure decisions, that may include steps within your own control such as investing in solar panels on roofs of offices. Take a top-down approach and do what you can depending on your business’ circumstances.

Secondly, if a flight for a meeting is suggested, question it. The Ad Net Zero team has developed an excellent decision tree to help inform a travel policy which actively seeks to limit the number of flights. One of the upsides of lockdowns was the rapid adoption of video-meeting software, changing the mindset when it comes to demanding in-person meetings without considering the consequences of air travel.

But we do need to meet face-to-face (we are a people industry, after all) and sustainable advertising is not about a complete travel ban. Rather, we are asking for responsible business travel. For example, where possible, people should be encouraged to take the train.

Companies should consider ways to incentivize sustainable forms of business travel, from the use of EVs (electric vehicles) rather than petrol vehicles, opting for renewable energy-powered modes of transport including city buses and trains, and help with cycling.

If, after due consideration, flying is the only option, then there are some golden rules here. Fly economy, rather than business class. The carbon footprint of an economy class flight is 2.9 times smaller than that more expensive business class option. Travelling first class uses four times the amount of carbon. Also, look at your choice of airline; some are making faster progress than others. Make sure you build in a cost to offset the flight.

Employee pressure comes in here, too. If you know a serial flight-taker within your organization, now’s the time to ask, in a sensitive way, if that behaviour is necessary and what alternative ways of working might be possible to achieve the same result.

Above and beyond

There are fantastic examples of organizations which have taken these simple principles on board and gone much further, too. While not every company has the financial or resource capacity to overhaul every aspect of their company’s operations, these examples should provide inspiration to anyone looking to make meaningful change.