Ad Age has a video of a panel discussion with some ad agencies and media folk about the ecological impact of their work. The clip features a presentation by jewelry merchant John Hardy who is planting bamboo on an entire island off the coast of Bali to offset the greenhouse gases generated by his print advertising. We found this video on YouTube about it:
While aiming for carbon neutrality is a step in the ‘better’ direction, it
will be leapfrogged by those who commit to not only minimizing their impact,
but will seek out restorative ways to continue doing business. The brand
issue will not be who is doing good, but who IS good.I applaud the example John Hardy is setting within the luxury-based fashion
industry; however, I would also advise advertisers to look beyond evaluating
the supply chain. Instead of spending money on carbon neutrality, perhaps
the investment would be best suited to exploring new technologies and
innovations which could eliminate a portion of their footprint and set them
apart from the competition.It is vital that the marketing industry address these issues, but take a
’step’ beyond simply minimizing your footprint, understand and challenge
why you made that footprint in the first place.
Your thoughts?
Watch Diana at the PSFK Conference on the Marketing Gap In Green Panel
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In the main, advertisers have not evaluated the environmental impacts associated with the advertising media supply chain. Most of work has been on the sustainability of their core business supply chains and on the creation of ad content that talks about sustainability.
While John Hardy’s efforts to foster sustainable agroforestry projects that sequester carbon and generate additional economic and social benefits is laudable, even more important is the example he is setting as an advertiser in his support for the Sustainable Advertising Partnership.
The Sustainable Advertising Partnership is a voluntary corporate membership program inspired by the growing importance of quantifying and reducing carbon dioxide emissions related to advertising.
The Partnership is dedicated to mitigating climate change impacts and addressing the challenges of sustainability related to advertising by fostering cross-industry dialogue and creating practical carbon offset and greenhouse gas emission reduction action frameworks and initiatives that yield measurable and meaningful results.
The mission of the Sustainable Advertising Partnership is to provide its members with a portfolio of resources and services tailored to address the challenges of sustainability and to quantify, offset and reduce at least 10 million of tons of greenhouse gas emissions from print media supply chain lifecycles within ten years.
Long term, the goals of the ISC Sustainable Advertising Partnership are to foster systemic change eliminating the need for carbon offsets in advertising supply chains and to create systemic economic, environmental and social benefit in and through advertising in magazines, newspapers, free-standing inserts, point-of-purchase, catalogs and other advertising supported media.
For more information see:
http://www.SustainableAds.org
Advertising and print media have both cognitive and physical effects.
Ads can have cognitive effects that are cooling. They can help change what people think and do.
However, advertisers who also take steps to ensure that their ad pages are carbon neutral through offseting send an important and even more cooling market signal to publishers and companies in the media supply chain that highlights the largely unrealized opportunity for publishers and their supply chain partners to reduce the carbon footprint of print and other media.
While emphasizing offsets rather than reduction may sound counterintuitive, there is little more that an advertiser can do. They do not buy the paper or hire the printer, or determine how the magazines will get distributed or how the unsold newstand copies will be managed.
If the offsets are credible and appropriately directed to projects that effect meaningful long term change they allow for the immediate reallocation of capital to support strategic renewable energy and sequestration projects that can result in the orderly, systemic and sustainable transformation of advertising and media chain.
While there may be some “low hanging fruit” footprint reduction opportunities that can and should be pursued, opportunities for 10x reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and for the transformation of media supply chains will require clear market signals, directed capital investment and carefully considered systemic change if they are to be sustainable, secure and credible.
July 12th, 2007 at 1:16 pm