Ad Net Zero highlights the ‘triple win’ marketers can achieve through tackling emissions

A new landmark Whitepaper from leading industry program Ad Net Zero has, for the first time, quantified advertising’s contribution to Australian businesses’ supply chain emissions – finding it averages more than 5% of upstream Scope 3 emissions, and that this climbs as high as 16% in key sectors such as government, infrastructure and public services.

The research, developed with climate and carbon disclosure specialists 2XE, highlights how better arming businesses with better data can reduce emissions without compromising marketing performance or investment.

Ad Net Zero Australia Lead Arum Nixon said the findings highlighted why marketers should be engaging directly with their organisation’s sustainability strategy, rather than risk having marketing’s emissions calculated and cut for them: “For a long time, marketing has sat outside the emissions conversation, often delegating these questions to a risk or finance team. This report, and the data within it, shows that’s no longer tenable – in some sectors, advertising is one of the largest sources of Scope 3 emissions a business has.”

Among the major findings in the whitepaper, entitled “Triple Win For Marketers”, is the argument that with mandatory climate reporting under AASB S2 bringing new scrutiny to how businesses measure and disclose emissions across their value chain, marketing – often overlooked as immaterial – is now a genuine consideration for corporate boards and sustainability teams.

The paper also sets out a practical case for why addressing marketing’s emissions doesn’t need to come at the cost of budget or campaign performance, provided organisations move from broad, spend-based estimates to more granular, activity-based data.

Says Nixon: “This report is significant because it tackles the myth that you can reduce your emissions but that it comes at the expense of advertising performance.

“The good news is that marketers who get ahead of this issue have a genuine opportunity, not just a compliance burden. When you move to activity-based data, you can usually find areas where waste is sitting and tackle it often while improving campaign performance at the same time. That’s a far better position than simply being told to cut spend.”

2XE co-founder and CEO Nick Palousis, who led the analysis, said the scale of the numbers warranted immediate attention: “When a supply chain emissions source averages over 5%, it is showing up on the pie chart and deserves a plan. Advertising can sit alongside, and in some cases exceed, other familiar Scope 3 sources such as waste or business travel. The difference is that action can often start without major capital deployment or impact on the organisation.”

Two leading Australian brands are featured in the whitepaper illustrating how brands are tackling this issue: Australian Ethical, working with Benedictus Media and oOh!media, cut out-of-home emissions per dollar spent by 63% and per thousand impacts by 82% through better targeting, renewable-powered inventory, recyclable materials and more energy-efficient creative – contributing to a 21% reduction in overall paid media emissions and a 50% stronger uplift in brand awareness than the brand’s previous campaign.

National broadcaster SBS, working with media agency Hearts & Science, has also reduced its marketing’s share of its Scope 3 emissions from 6% (FY22, spend-based) to 3% (FY25, using a hybrid of spend-based, supplier and activity-based data), with a goal of reaching 100% activity-based measurement. For its recent Premium Drama campaign, SBS was able to serve BVOD ads at times when there was more renewable energy in the grid – across all dayparts – using Hearts & Science’s Renewables Ad Engine, leading to a 24.6% reduction in the carbon intensity of the campaign compared to the delivery from an SBS baseline campaign without compromising audience reach.

Says Emma Grainge, Head of Brand & Communications at Australian Ethical: “Finding a solution that reduced our advertising emissions without impacting the campaign performance was important to us. More broadly, addressing marketing’s emissions will play an important role in our overall decarbonisation strategy. This is not just because Australian Ethical is a purpose-driven brand; we see it as a strategic advantage to future-proof our business.”

Says Abi Thomas, Head of Sustainability at SBS: “Marketing emissions are a material part of SBS’s carbon footprint, so reducing them is an important part of our sustainability journey. By moving from spend-based to activity-based measurement, we’ve gained a far more accurate picture of our impact and identified practical ways to reduce it. This includes delivering lower-carbon advertising campaigns, such as the recent SBS premium drama campaign, which reduced emissions without compromising audience reach.”

The whitepaper sets out a five-step playbook for marketers: establish a baseline, improve data quality, adopt a consistent methodology such as the GMSF, build carbon into planning decisions, and set targets with embedded accountability.

It builds on a body of work launched by the Australian chapter, including the creation of a toolkit for the industry on how to decarbonise business operations and a recently-released guide to reducing media’s carbon footprint. Australian supporters have also been extensively involved in the development of the Global Media Sustainability Framework (GMSF), a voluntary emissions measurement framework to provide consistent measurement across the media industry. The GMSF is available now at this link.

The full Australian whitepaper is available at the Ad Net Zero website.

Pictured (L-R) Emma Grainge Head of Brand & Communications at Australian Ethical, Abi Thomas Head of Sustainability at SBS, Arum Nixon Australian Chapter Lead, AdNetZero.

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