Ad Net Zero puts marketing emissions on the CMO agenda

Marketing’s carbon footprint is getting harder to palm off to the sustainability team.

New Australian analysis suggests advertising accounts for more than 5% of upstream supply chain emissions on average, and as much as 16% in some sectors, putting increased pressure on marketers to understand the environmental impact of their media and creative supply chains.

The figures are contained in Triple Win for Marketers, a new white paper from Ad Net Zero Australia and sustainability consultancy 2XE, which argues reducing advertising emissions can deliver environmental gains while also improving campaign efficiency and business performance.

Ad Net Zero Australia director Arum Nixon said the scale of advertising’s contribution could catch some marketers by surprise.

“I think maybe some marketers don’t realise just how significant their footprint might be,” Nixon told this publication.

The issue is becoming more pressing as Australia phases in mandatory climate reporting requirements, with larger organisations required to account for Scope 3 emissions, including those generated through their supply chains.

For marketers, that means advertising expenditure and the emissions generated through media, production, technology and other partners will increasingly form part of a much wider business conversation.

Nixon said that shift created an opportunity for CMOs to move beyond viewing sustainability purely through a compliance or corporate-purpose lens.

“Once you frame it as future proofing your supply chain, suddenly the business spidey senses are tingling a little bit more,” Nixon said.

He said the conversation around sustainability had previously made some marketers nervous, particularly amid concerns around greenwashing and questions over whether brands had the credibility to talk publicly about environmental issues.

But the growing focus on supply-chain efficiency was changing that equation, positioning emissions reduction increasingly as a matter of business practice rather than brand purpose.

Ad Net Zero began in the UK in 2020 before expanding internationally, with individual markets operating independently while drawing on tools and resources developed through the wider global network. The Australian program launched in late 2024 with support from major advertising industry bodies.

Central to the new paper is a push for marketers to move from broad spend-based estimates of advertising emissions towards activity-based measurement.

Under spend-based calculations, businesses estimate emissions by multiplying marketing expenditure by an agreed emissions factor. Nixon said that could provide a useful top-line figure, but gave marketers little ability to identify where emissions were actually occurring or reduce them without simply cutting spend.

Activity-based measurement instead looks at individual elements including formats, placements and media environments, allowing marketers to identify emissions hotspots and compare those against campaign performance.

Australian Ethical is among the advertisers highlighted in the paper. The financial services company identified out-of-home as both an important growth channel and one of its largest sources of advertising emissions, prompting it to work more closely with media partners to reduce the channel’s footprint.

Its work included examining factors as granular as the brightness of digital out-of-home creative, with darker executions requiring less energy to display.

The company ultimately reduced emissions per dollar spent across its out-of-home activity by 63%, with reductions of up to 82% across some formats. It also recorded a 21% reduction in paid-media emissions while generating a 50% stronger uplift in brand awareness.

SBS is also featured in the paper, having reduced advertising’s share of its overall carbon footprint from 6% in FY22 to 3% in FY25. Work across its BVOD activity delivered a 24.6% reduction in campaign carbon intensity without compromising reach.

Nixon said there was unlikely to be a single measure capable of dramatically cutting advertising emissions across every campaign or channel. Instead, he said reductions were likely to come through the cumulative effect of numerous decisions across media buying, technology, production and creative.

That could also expose waste and inefficiencies that have little to do with sustainability itself.

“You can often do that in a more efficient way to reduce emissions,” Nixon said. “Often that can make it work harder for you [and] reduce unnecessary costs.”

Nixon said marketers should also consider the strategic advantage of moving before reporting requirements force the issue further up the corporate agenda.

“We’re encouraging marketers to lean in, get a bit of that first mover advantage as well,” Nixon said.

“It can be a business competitive advantage, a campaign performance competitive advantage, as well as obviously reducing emissions.”

He said conversations with sustainability experts and business leaders increasingly showed the issue was already reaching the boardroom, particularly as organisations considered how to manage climate and supply-chain risks over the longer term.

“This is about good business practice,” Nixon said, describing the work as part of future proofing an organisation rather than something confined to purpose-driven brands.