Unfortunately, the majority of what I have seen of the efforts to quantify and reduce emissions so far would not be taken seriously by climate experts, including those at major brands. Part of the problem is that many in the ad sector have tried to reinvent the wheel within the confines of their competitive landscape, rather than realize that virtually all of the key questions have already been answered through similar processes in other sectors.
The best way to meet everyone’s goals is through precompetitive collaboration, both within the ad sector and across all of the key climate stakeholder groups.
I am very optimistic that this awkward growth phase will quickly pass through faster and deeper collaboration. Beyond the strong start in working across the people and organizations already in the ad sector, it is critical to bring sustainability experts into the process. Climate NGOs, consultants and, above all, the brand experts—who will be paying the costs, directly or indirectly, of ad decarbonization—who have been working on climate for decades can quickly align the ad sector’s actions with established best practices.
This collaboration can avoid unnecessary cycles and mitigate the risk that all the sincere hard work going into these efforts will be rejected by advertisers, regulators and investors because existing standards and best practices were not followed.
Over the past few weeks, I have spoken with more than 10 chief sustainability officers and climate executives for major brands. None of them have explored the decarbonization of marketing and advertising, but all of them have committed to reach out to their chief marketing officers to provide expert support. This collaboration with climate experts can address a number of key issues.
Education
Climate is a new, complex topic with its own terminology, standards and ecosystem, so those in the ad sector who want to be part of meaningful progress need training and support. I spoke at a green media summit recently, and the top requested action item from across a wide variety of stakeholders was climate education.
Fortunately, there are many existing resources from leading climate NGOs (e.g., The Greenhouse Gas Protocol) and from the ad sector (e.g., Ad Net Zero). If you are part of a brand, you have climate expert colleagues who would be happy to engage if you reach out to them.
