Industry goes green but where are DMA, IPM and IAB?

The advertising and marketing industry is launching a new environmental initiative, dubbed AdGreen, which is designed to unite the sector in an effort to eliminate the negative environmental impacts of ad production.

The brainchild of the Climate Action Working Group, led by the Advertising Association in partnership with ISBA and the IPA, launch partners include Adam & Eve DDB, Advertising Production Resources (APR), Havas, IPG’s MullenLowe, Sky, Unilever and WPP.

The Association of Photographers is also on board, although there is no confirmation that the DMA, IAB UK, the Institute of Promotional Marketing or even the British Printing Industries Federation are involved, even though the work their members produce has arguably a far bigger impact on the environment. None of these trade bodies committed to the Climate Action Working Group either, when it was launched in January this year.

The AdGreen scheme will be led by industry specialist Jo Coombes with support from strategy advisor Tricia Duffy, and is a strategic partnership with Albert, the Bafta-led sustainability project for the TV and film industry.

Following the learnings of Albert, AdGreen will provide tools, services and expertise to the entire UK advertising production community from 2021, enabling all ad professionals to improve the way campaign assets are produced for a better climate future.

AdGreen launches with two clear aims: to measure advertising production carbon footprints, allowing the project team to understand which activities have the biggest impact; and to empower the industry to reduce emissions and to act for a zero carbon/zero waste.

It will offer a carbon footprint calculator, incorporating global carbon factors from over 140 countries, as well as specialist training, a renewable energy buy-in scheme, and later, certification and a high-quality offsetting scheme, for the advertising community in the UK.

The Advertising Association is actively seeking more partners to accelerate the uptake and impact of the programme.

All advertisers, agencies and production companies looking to find out more about AdGreen should register their interest at its website. AdGreen is also exploring ways to establish the standard at an international level and welcomes enquiries from interested parties in territories from around the world.

Coombes said: “We want to build a future-proofed, carbon literate workforce, giving us the opportunity for the highest creative ambition with the lowest carbon impact.

“Ultimately, AdGreen means everyone producing advertising work will be able to capture and understand their own footprint data; advertisers and advertising agencies will be able to compare that to anonymised benchmarks.”

WPP global CEO Mark Read added: “WPP has a responsibility to use our scale and power of creativity to influence society and change behaviour. As founding partners of AdGreen, we’re helping to set a new industry-wide benchmark for a zero carbon and zero waste ad production future that supports clients in achieving their carbon reduction goals and makes green ad production the norm.”

The Climate Action workstream is a key part of the Advertising Association Council’s new responsibility agenda in 2020, following the launch of the association’s new mission: to promote the role and rights of responsible advertising and its value to people, society, businesses and the economy.