It’s more than just recycled paper and environmentally friendly ink. The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, or simply “Cannes Lions”, is a celebration of the advertising and communications creations that bring the world’s brands to life. Each year, in Cannes, France, professionals in the space rub elbows with fellow creatives and recognize one another with awards in film, print, radio, and more. This year, the festival saw the introduction of non-compulsory sustainability reporting as part of the entry process.

Using AdNet Zero’s five-point Action Plan as a guide, entrants were encouraged to provide data regarding C02 emissions as part of their production process… AdNet Zero is a World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) initiative to achieve net-zero carbon emissions in the space by 2030. While reporting wasn’t required, or part of the judging process, it’s a step in the right direction.

Much like the fashion industry, media and advertising can feel like a strange bedfellow to sustainability… simply because, by nature, these spaces consume and encourage consumption. We’ve been given a narrative that we can only be “for” or “against” climate change and consumption. This is a more pragmatic approach: get accountable, stay accountable, keep creating. With estimates putting emissions contributions in the space between 4% and 20%, we think it’s a smart move.

Important names in the space are committing to leading the way, including Unilever, Google, and Dentsu Group. Global advertising and communications company Dentsu, for instance, has created a “sustainable business board” which will oversee their goals of boosting their sustainability exponentially within the next decade. Unilever is also working toward substantially reducing emissions across their operations, as well as helping with deforestation efforts.

Google has also made bold promises, such as achieving carbon neutrality, the eventual use of 100% renewables, increased energy efficiency at data centers, and over $1 billion going toward, and allocated for, climate research and innovation investments. A key part of these efforts will be measurement and measurement tools… such as a carbon calculator, which can be used to estimate emissions from any given ad campaign.

If you’ve worked with project planning software, this can be similar. For a carbon calculator, each input variable along the campaign is factored in, and changes can then be made to see where emissions can be reduced. More sustainable materials can be used, more environmentally friendly practices can be employed during shoots and set production, and more thought can be put into the entire process in general.

Scope3, a media decarbonization company, conducted a study to find out if reducing carbon emissions had any negative impacts on campaigns. They found the opposite to be true… that, in some cases, they performed better. According to the company, we’ve moved from the “trying to understand” phase to the “let’s do something about it” phase of sustainability in media and advertising. Now, practicing what we preach matters.

The company offers a “progress over perfection” perspective and seems to be walking their own line. That’s what we look for when observing companies… we don’t want talk, we want action. Scope3 has recently partnered with global integrated advertising platform, Adform, and together they’ll be empowering advertisers to reduce their carbon footprint with quantifiable data and measurable results.

Thanks to the partnership, Adform clients can plan, review, optimize, monitor, and change the carbon footprint of a campaign and can dip into a valuable pool of media owner and supply chain data. With Adform being a global, independent, integrated advertising platform and Scope3 delivering accurate, comprehensive, and independent emissions models… it seems like the alliance has the potential for power.

Adform isn’t the only company that sees a future in a Scope3 partnership… demand-side platform and advertising technology company Bidtellect is working with them to help advertisers offer emissions transparency. Directly from the platform, Bidtellect allows customers to see the carbon costs of their campaigns and reduce them. We think this kind of partnership, with this tie-in of data, is what we’ll see more of to help tackle sustainability in this space moving forward… come back next week for more from the green tech space.