Reducing carbon footprint in advertising

How does a communication campaign generate carbon emissions?

From conception to dissemination, including production, a communication campaign consists of a series of events and actions that inherently have a carbon footprint. While “digital” has often been singled out for its carbon footprint related to individual digital devices and households, network infrastructure, and data centers, all media impact the environment and contribute to carbon emissions in their distribution chains. It’s a relatively recent endeavor to quantify this impact – to better offset and/or control it.

Do you feel that advertisers are now more concerned about the carbon footprint of their campaigns?

A handful of brands have recognized the importance of the issue for several years and have led us to do the same. Some of them have created their own carbon impact calculators, and we work together to assess commonalities and differences between our approaches, refining them over time. This also allows us to establish “zero points” for the carbon consumption associated with their media campaigns and jointly define virtuous trajectories. Today, a large majority of brands, agencies, and media are following this approach and looking into the issue. Havas is also participating in Udecam’s work on calculating the environmental impact of media campaigns. It’s important to engage with these initiatives and exchange ideas to create a positive collective momentum.

You’ve just launched a tool to measure the carbon impact of media campaigns. Can you explain how it works?

We started working on this carbon impact calculator nearly two years ago. We co-developed it with a carbon impact consulting firm, identifying all the links in the distribution chain of a campaign, media by media, and quantifying their carbon impact(s). Each media has its specificities. For press, we took into account the circulation of titles, their dimensions, paper weight, percentage of recycled paper, ink, etc. For television, we considered the weight of spots per second and household audience. For outdoor advertising, we factored in the electricity consumption for scrolling or lighting, panel dimensions, poster weight, glue quantity, distance traveled for installation, etc. This data was collected from media outlets and will be updated annually. Today, our traders enter the details of a media campaign and, in addition to media performance, obtain carbon performance metrics.

Do you believe that advertising can change the world?

Only citizens can change the world. But advertising, at its level, can and should be a vehicle among others to accompany awareness, mindset, and behavioral changes.”