Industry professionals fear sector's impact on planet

Advertising and marketing professionals not only suffer higher climate anxiety than the general public, they are also far more concerned about the industry’s environmental impact.

That is the damning conclusion of a new IPA study, carried out by Ipsos, that will be debated at an IPA Advertising Week Europe ‘Advertising and the Climate Crisis’ event at today (May 16).

Commissioned by the IPA Media Climate Action Group and carried out in April this year, in total, the survey received responses from 545 IPA advertising agency employees, 1,067 adults (general public) aged 16 to 75 in the UK, plus an additional 475 young adults aged 16- to 24-years-old.

It reveals that ad agency employees who responded are more anxious and demoralised about climate change than the general public
Over half of those respondents from IPA agencies (53%) feel anxious about climate change, and 37% feel demoralised about climate change. These figures are far higher than for the general public, for whom 37% feel anxious and 14% feel demoralised.

In fact, of the agency employees who responded, only a minority feel they have influence over environmental strategy.

In response to being asked which areas they have influence on policy or ways of working in their company (out of six options), ‘Strategies to reduce adverse environmental and social impacts’ was selected by 25%, while ‘Distribution of work to team members’ and ‘Personal development and training of employees’ was selected by double this amount, and highest, at 51% each. In addition, only 30% felt they have influence over mental health and wellbeing.

Even so, more than half (53%) of young people would consider working in the advertising industry, according to the data, in comparison with 38% of the general public and one in four young adults have a positive view of the ad industry’s impact on climate change while almost half of ad agency employees have a negative view.

Some 26% of young adults believe the ad industry has a positive impact on climate change and 17% of the same audience believe it has a negative impact. This is in comparison with 21% and 18% respectively for the general population.

Perceptions among the ad agency respondents are, however, more negative, with only 12% believing the ad industry has a positive impact on climate change and a considerable 48% believing it has a negative impact on climate change.

Howevder, agency employees have a comparatively more favourable view of their own companies’ efforts to combat climate change than collective industry efforts.

When asked ‘Is the [advertising industry/your company] doing enough to address climate change?’ almost half of ad agency respondents (49%) said their company was doing too little, while 70% said the industry was doing too little.

But a quarter of the agency employees who responded don’t yet feel comfortable voicing concerns to colleagues about a client’s impact on the environment.

While 55% of ad industry employees would feel comfortable voicing their concerns to colleagues about the clients they work with and their impact on climate change, 25% say they wouldn’t.

IPA Media Climate Action Group chair Pauline Robson, who is also managing partner and head of sustainability at EssenceMediacom, said: “By surveying the level of feeling about the climate crisis, we are seeking to provide insight and stimulus for key decision makers and agency leaders to formulate the right strategies and approaches to navigate the needs of current and future talent, clients, stakeholders and the planet.

“Looking at these results, and on a positive note, it is great to see that a healthy percentage of young people would consider working in our industry and crucially that, contrary to our hypothesis that the ad industry may be off-putting to them in terms of its perceived impact on the planet, it appears this isn’t the case.

“On a more cautious note, however, what we are seeing instead is that those working in our industry are far more anxious about climate change and the ad industry’s impact on it, and so it’s important that our businesses take heed of this and that we explore how we can help support and empower them best – both in the work we produce and in the conversations and feelings around it.

“In short, what we’re seeing is that advertising’s impact on climate change is not necessarily a deterrent to recruitment into our industry but could well become a retention issue, if we don’t address these findings fully.”

The IPA Media Climate Action Group will be working with Ipsos to develop these findings with a full report to be published later in the year.