Advertising has a major role to play in helping people live better, more sustainable lives

“Most, if not all, measures to address climate change actually improve quality of life.” Cristiana Figueres – Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change  

Advertising is immensely powerful. It is a medium that has the power to entertain, inform, to educate, and to influence. Ask a friend to rank the industries having the most positive impact on climate change and it is unlikely that advertising would make the top of anyone’s list.  

For some, advertising is associated with encouraging over-consumption, while brands’ environmental messages are dismissed as greenwashing. The inconvenient truth is that these claims aren’t without merit. A recent report by Purpose Disruptors revealed that advertising adds 28% to the carbon footprint of every single person in the UK.  

It doesn’t have to be like this.  

Last year, Mindshare launched an ambitious new proposition known as Good Growth. At the heart of Good Growth is a belief that advertisers can do the right thing for people, and for the planet, without sacrificing growth. At Mindshare, we believe that advertising is already driving significant positive change in the UK and globally. And it has the power to do so much more.  

Like other sectors, the ad industry has recognised the need to reduce its own carbon footprint. At Mindshare, we’re firmly on track for our operations to be carbon neutral by 2025.  

And we recognise we have the potential to extend a positive environmental impact far beyond our own operations by working with our partners across the media supply chain ecosystem.  

This isn’t a case of doing the right thing. We believe that the carbon footprint of media operations will become a much more significant factor in the allocation of media investment over the coming years as more consumers demand sustainable products and increasingly spend with companies and brands that provide products and services that are better for the environment. As such, we are developing tools to advise and then optimise media on that basis. 

One fantastic example is the multi-channel Media Carbon Calculator which allows advertisers and media planners to calculates the carbon footprint of the end delivery of a media schedule and make informed decisions on more sustainable campaigns. 

But don’t stop there. As important as the above is, it will only represent a fraction of the emissions we need to reduce. A much bigger impact will come from harnessing the creative and strategic firepower of our industry to promote more sustainable behaviours through our campaigns. Working with our clients, we can inspire and enable their audiences to use less, waste less, eat better, travel better, buy better and protect nature, all the while solidifying the role and relevance of their brands in a more sustainable world. 

Hellmann’s recent partnership with Channel 4 targeted food waste demonstrates how brand campaigns can target real-world challenges in a way that is engaging, relevant and authentic.  

Starting with the insight that in the UK, the equivalent of one in every six bags of food bought ends up being thrown away and that 70% of all food waste in the UK comes from households, the campaign Cook Clever, Waste Less, brought together celebrity chefs Prue Leith and Dr Rupy Aujla who worked with a different family every week to show them how much food was wasted in their household and demonstrate easy, and budget friendly recipes that reduce food waste.  

For my money, the brilliance of the campaign is that it does not ask people to give anything up, it offers interesting and engaging solutions to a common problem. It also demonstrates that issues we sometimes think of as separate – in this case the environment and the cost-of-living crisis - can in fact be interrelated. 

Hellmann’s is a Unilever brand. In the interests of transparency, I’m happy to declare Unilever are as Mindshare client. For the sake of balance, there are numerous other brands that we don’t work for doing fantastic work in this area. Here Ikea spring to mind – their campaigns interweave sustainability, re-use and circularity in a way that perfectly aligns with their Scandi brand. Their campaigns always remind me of the Scandinavian concept of Lagom – essentially “just enough”, a sense of balance achieved by not having too little and not having too much.  

More than recognising that saving the planet doesn’t have to involve sacrifice, brands such as Hellmann’s and Ikea understand that leading more sustainable lifestyles can actually bring us a sense of satisfaction. Lifestyles that have less impact on the environment, waste less, and save money without giving anything up are better lives. The brands that tap into this shift in consumer behaviour will be the ones that enjoy sustained growth in the coming years.  

Finally, it’s worth acknowledging that the climate crisis is too big a challenge for any business to address alone. If you would like to know what you can do to deliver more sustainable campaigns, I’d urge you to take a look at the work of the #ChangeTheBrief Alliance. We supported the launch of the Alliance as a not-for-profit partnership between agencies of every size and type - media, creative, design, PR - and their clients, learning and acting together to directly address the challenge of the climate crisis by promoting sustainability via every channel available to them. 

Rachel Coffey, Client Director, Strategy