Advertising is not usually seen as a priority industry for broader climate action. With advertising operational emissions responsible for less than 2 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, there seem to be bigger fish to fry — such as circularity and other issues. Yet the advertising industry has a superpower that the climate community lacks: the ability to change behavior and shape demand.

After working with leaders in the advertising industry to address operation emissions, I was surprised by the general lack of understanding of climate issues — perhaps in part due to the dramatic shift from physical forms of advertising to digital giving the impression that the operations were inherently "clean."

In the last two years, the advertising industry started to realize that there are considerable impacts from the energy needed to drive the digital ads that have become even more ubiquitous and intense than traditional advertising. The initial response from their industry associations was to form organizations such as Ad Net Zero — which I now advise — to develop action plans, including the creation of standards to estimate and report emissions. What has been missing until very recently is building on the vast experience of the climate community.

Here are some ways the advertising industry can be tapped to advance climate action: 

Connecting advertising to climate best practices 

While we are still at the beginning of this pivot to connect climate action in advertising to existing global standards and best practices, there is a strong start:

• The Ad Net Zero Action Plan addresses greenhouse gas emissions inventories for organizations and ad campaign-level impacts (following life-cycle accounting principles), and working groups have been formed to create standards and guidelines;
• Other industry organizations such as the World Federation of Advertisers, IAB Technology Laboratory, the Association of National Advertisers, Prebid and the American Association of Advertising Agencies are supporting this initiative and developing complementary guidance;
• OpenX, a client of mine, has demonstrated how quickly the ad sector can move by becoming not just the first carbon neutral company in the industry but the first company in the world to meet the Science Based Technology initiative (SBTi) Net-Zero Standard.

Even with many key industry associations committing to moving forward on educating their members and providing detailed guidance on how to quantify, reduce and offset their emissions, coordination across all of these organizations is a challenge. Furthermore, these efforts have been primarily focused on Europe and North America, with still a lot of work to do to engage other important geographies.

Get clear on climate terminology and communication

In the absence of robust collaboration with sustainability experts, there has been widespread confusion about climate terms (carbon neutral vs. net zero), competing and usually opaque ways of estimating carbon emissions, and straight up greenwashing to take advantage of lightly informed decision-makers. 

Until recently, there has been very little appreciation of the importance of following existing standards, having all methodologies and claims verified by reputable third-parties, and making sure that the focus is on reductions aligned with science-based targets and not just trying to buy your way out via offsets. This situation undermines the trust that all stakeholders will need to have in the actions being taken in the ad sector. Some of the most important stakeholders are the brands who will end up paying for all of these efforts.

Collaboration is key 

If you are a climate expert — particularly as part of a major brand — reach out to your marketing colleagues to offer your help as they move to align their activities and value chains with the overall climate goals of your companies. Collaboration between the chief sustainability officer’s team and the chief marketing officer’s team can quickly clear the air of confusion and greenwashing and make sure that progress is accelerated, transparent and meaningful. I’ve found it is also a lot of fun.

While such collaboration on addressing the climate impact of advertising can have tangible results in reducing emissions and avoiding wasted funds on unverified offerings, the really big benefit for all climate experts is to have the ad sector as an active ally in changing behaviors. 

Even more than they need our help in addressing their 2 percent emissions, we need their expertise to address the other 98 percent. Fortunately, the advertising industry is motivated to help. Ad Net Zero’s Action 5 aims to use the superpower of advertising to promote climate action, and industry activist groups such as Purpose Disruptors have this focus as their sole purpose. Every climate NGO and every climate policy organization should engage the ad sector both to help them join the overall climate action community and to get their help in changing the behaviors that will determine whether we will achieve our critical climate goals.

2023 is a key year to avoid the pitfalls and realize the promise of having "adland" as a powerful climate ally. The world you save may be your own.