Quick Change is a Big Opportunity in Advertising

By Samantha Leigh, Consultant, Green Spark Group

I've been working with agencies and production companies on commercials and photoshoots for over 2 years now, and what continues to inspire me about these projects is how quickly change can be implemented. It's like being back in a science lab, where I had opportunities to grow bacteria in petri dishes for experiments. It was so incredible to come back to those labs each day and see how quickly the bacteria colonies had grown and changed during the experiment. The reason we were able to observe these changes is because bacteria life cycles are so quick, and it's like watching evolution in rapid motion.

Now, I don't want to turn anyone off by likening commercial productions to bacteria. It's just that when we work on long-format content, it can take a while to create change and see the results of your efforts. In contrast - commercials are quick! That means that when I work with the same production team several times, the evolution of our sustainability strategies and opportunities happens faster and sooner, and we can make a lot of positive, measurable progress from job to job. In my more optimistic moods, I think that I wouldn't be surprised to see advertising productions overtake film and TV - which have been working on this a lot longer - in achieving minimal emissions and waste, and net zero productions! I recently finished a project where the production team was able to reduce emissions from transportation by 68% - just by renting EVs!

This optimism doesn't mean that I don't see the challenges, though. Oftentimes, the fast pace and tight budgets can leave us with a lot of "should-haves" from project to project. Production and service companies are handed down creative directives from agency producers and brand marketing teams, and they don't always have a lot of opportunity to suggest more sustainable alternatives. I recently worked on a job where a VFX puff of smoke, as if from an engine, was a specific request from the creative director, despite our observation that the equipment in question could very easily be battery-powered instead of running on fossil fuels. These creative directives have both on-screen and behind the scenes implications for sustainability. For example, if an approved creative element by the brand requires printing or fabrication of a specific prop from plastic or vinyl, the production companies don't really have a choice but to hire this service and manage the material as waste. In some cases, the agency or brand will take back these fabrications to hopefully reuse on another shoot. But there's no guarantee that they won't get trashed down the line.

This continuity issue is why the work and outreach done by organizations like Green the Bid and AdGreen are so important, and why we're working directly with ad agencies in North America. A whole-industry transformation for sustainable advertising production will require efforts all the way from brands with huge marketing teams, down to the smallest single-producer production houses. And the best way to make informed decisions is to keep tracking impacts when it comes to emissions and waste. To my knowledge, the advertising industry doesn't currently have any achievement standards or certification options when it comes to sustainable production. Instead, the transformation is partially driven by brands' accountability to their shareholders and reporting requirements under CDP or other frameworks. The advertising industry is certainly at a pivotal moment for sustainability, and I'm excited to see where we continue to go.