What are these green painted bike paths doing in the middle of Manhattan? Was the land of consumption really starting to care about the state of the planet?

We had arranged to see a number of companies including the leading advertiser industry body to test the water with our environmental marketing solutions. What was the percentage weighting for the environment compared with saving the dollars in a time of unprecedented institutional unrest?

The first day of my meetings corresponded with a 700-point drop on the Dow Jones. Would anyone be interested in greening up their marketing spend in a strategically and balanced way when simply slashing the advertising budget would do the trick?

Continue reading "Greening the internet by the Americans?" »

According to our calculations marketing communication globally is responsible for over 500 million tonnes of CO2-e per year and is forecast to grow by over 5 percent every year thereafter.

To get this into some prospective, this is the equivalent amount CO2-e generated in the same period by over 380,000,000 average fuel-efficient cars. This is more than half the total number of cars on the road today!

Continue reading "Advertiser’s Carbon Footprint equivalent to 380,000,000 cars!" »

As the station bosses worried themselves, then the show into an early grave, there is some good news.

Big Brother was contributing over 1.5 tonnes of carbon to the atmosphere for each 30 seconds of viewing during the peak of the latest series.

This national audience was very attractive to any would be advertiser wishing to promote their goods and services during the show.

Unfortunately as the shows popularly waned so did the advertisers enthusiasm.
As the ratings tumbled so did Big Brothers massive carbon footprint.

He finally got his marching orders when during it's lowest ratings period it could only claim responsibility for just over half a tonne of carbon for each 30 second spot.

So having failed to attract the necessary number of carbon eating plasma watching consumers he was finally laid to rest.

Look on the bright side, the show was so boring that the carbon emissions were reduced by over a tonne!

Let's just hope that all those viewers turned their TV's off and had a game of cards under their energy saving light bulbs.

1. Paper. Manufacturing of paper stock is the biggest cause of carbon in the supply chain. It accounts for over 70% of the footprint in most printing processes. Reviewing your paper stock specifications to a lower carbon emitting paper is the quickest way to reduce your footprint. Do not be misled by the carbon neutral label. Ask about the energy source.

Continue reading "The carbon impact of printing. A simple guide" »

The lack of comment from the IT industry on the new Carbon Age has been suspicious in it's absence. And for good reason.

Those good people at Carbon Trust in the UK have just announced a new programme to help companies understand the energy use within data centres.

You can read the release for yourself below but it is interesting to note that the 2% of world wide energy consumption that is being used to power the IT industry is equivalent to aviation industry.

So if you are a lover of carbon offsetting your interstate flights you may want to start considering planting a couple of trees after you have read this blog.

Continue reading "IT industry's carbon footprint equal to aviation's" »

Having just returned from the UK it is interesting to reflect on the differences between the approaches to carbon emissions.

In the UK they have had a government who recognized the issue of climate change earlier and therefore legislated to force behavioral change.

While not way ahead of Australia, one of the things that I noticed, and liked, was the growing skepticism towards the carbon neutral claim.

The focus is now on standards for product labeling of emissions.

Consumers can make a choice not only on price and quality but also the amount of emissions the product produces.

Continue reading " Carbon emission reduction NOT Carbon neutral" »

The paper industry continues to cop the brunt of the environmentalist anger when it comes to the evils of carbon emissions. Some of this is justified. But there is another CO2 monster lurking in the office.
Marketers tend have a simplistic catch-cry of ‘move away from paper based communications and go on-line’. So let’s have a look at some basic facts and figures about on-line.

Continue reading "The Hidden Carbon Culprit" »

In Australia there has been a rapid growth of marketing services companies claiming ‘carbon neutrality’, and built-in offsets’.

Also some of these suppliers are now indicating offsets as a loading (some TV production estimates are starting to have an 0.8% carbon offset fee as a line item) or claiming, either with accreditation or on their own calculations, to be ‘carbon neutral’.

So is it a case of business as usual and charge the end consumer for planting a tree?

In my option advertisers should take ownership of any offsetting they wish to buy. This will ensure that is compliant and also lines up with the company's environmental strategy.

Regardless of how many trees you pay to plant the point is the emissions are still occurring in the first place.

Slowly but surely examples of bad luck or bad management of a company’s environmental positioning are creeping into the media.

The resent classic was Sir Paul McCartney’s gift for helping the planet, the eco-friendly Hybrid Lexus, being delivered by jet from Japan!

In the rush to measure these offset emissions, care must be taken before using this ‘carbon neutrality’ and putting your company’s flag on the moral high ground.

I have just read with interest the news from Tesco where they are showing the amount of carbon that is being generated between 'seed and store' on 20 of their items.

Yes they are maximizing the marketing mileage of this by telling everyone that they are acting in an environmentally responsible way.

To me this transparency is to be applauded. They are talking about the good things they are doing and at the same time not being afraid to show the world the amount of carbon they are putting out in the process. Let's hope this lead is followed.

Too many companies are waving their 'carbon neutral' accreditation flags out of their windows without telling us the contribution they are making to climate change.

While Tesco have a long way to go, I for one think it is a great example for all those Green-washers out their on how correctly to position their environmental credentials.

Who's next? And do not forget about measuring the amount of carbon that is generated from telling us what a great green job you are doing.

Continue reading "Green-washers beware: Tesco show the the correct way to market their eco direction" »

Well, have you seen the new 'eco friendly' search engine launched this week from Yield Media?

www.ecocho.com.au that claims to 'offsets carbon emissions with no cost to the user.
The search engine is powered by Yahoo! and Google and offsets greenhouse gas emissions by sponsoring the growth of up to two trees for every 1000 searches you make."

Beautifully positioned on the search page is the number of kilos of CO2 and the number of trees. This is equal to 500 Kg per tree. Well done ecocho for planting the trees but where's the amount of CO2 they are generating?

The best data I can see (I have written to them and asked) is 2 trees per 1000 searches. This was on the PR release.

Now is it me or does that seem a massive offset being 1 Kg of CO2 for each search they have to offset?
If that is the case someone stop them immediately!

They have a FAQ asking "How much GHG is being used to run the site " but it is not answered. Their claim to be Carbon neutral is not an answer to this question.

The positioning of this service as an environmentally friendly product and then hiding the actual amount of emissions being generated is wrong. It is also wrong to have displayed under the same FAQ a NO CO2 logo. Where's the ACCC when you need them?

The whole point of offsetting or making yourself carbon neutral is that this is the last thing you do after you have measured and reduced as far as you can.

Then we all get a positive outcome. In advertising one of the best ways to reduce carbon emissions is to do it in a more targeted way or maybe move to another media channel.

The information and advice coming from the various industry bodies is not going give you that switching option.
I cannot imagine hearing a marketing representative for a printer saying ‘Hey, we are emitting way too much carbon, try on-line. We do plant a hell of a lot of tree though’.

While the Federal Government’s hefty carbon trading legislation is hurriedly being carried through the houses of parliament we should all stop and ask the big question:
What effect is it going to have on the life-blood of the nation – advertising?

Well advertising agency executives can all continue to sleep soundly on their futons.

The carbon trading schemes will desperately need their marketing and creative prowess. And Green is the new killer app in our strategic armoury (just watch out for the boys and girls from the ACCC if you tend to wash you greens too rigorously).

So they can continue to run those award-winning ads to ‘save the whale’ while at the same time not paying a price for slowing boiling them alive with the CO2 they emit in the process.

Just for one moment let's assume that a 30 second TV spot that is purchased becomes the advertisers responsibility. Just because the television is on anyway should not mean that it’s only the station network and the viewers who are responsible for the carbon emissions.

A choice has been made to promote the goods and services in this manner therefore one must take ownership of the time and responsibly for the emission.

Let’s pick a random, large rating show: The Biggest Loser.
Good reach and correct demographics.
Where is the measurement of the carbon footprint?
Don’t know?

Well, with the increase in large format plasma TV’s you can bank on having injected around 668 Kg of carbon and other greenhouse gases into the air every time that spot is shown in that show. That’s more than the weight of 5 of the contestants!

So while marketers count their tarps, clicks, hits, position and reach they should also ask ‘who is the biggest loser’

When looking at the world of marketing communications it’s starting to get harder to know if you are doing the 'right thing' by the environment.

Should I specify recycled stock for the brochure or a FSC labeled gloss paper? 
Or even better why not put it on-line or burn to a disk and save the rain forest. 


Here is a statistic to ponder.
A 24-page brochure during its life from chain-saw to the final printed product in your hand will have emitted approximately 25 grams of greenhouse gases into atmosphere.

When burning it to a humble CD or DVD it will have added 350 grams!
That's 14 times the weight of CO2 adding to climate change.

With all the new terms appearing around the world of greenhouse gases it is hard to keep up. Carbon offsets, carbon trading, carbon neutral and green washing are a few of the more common that are being bandied around. When looking at the world of marketing communications it starts to get harder to know if you are doing the 'right thing'.

Should I specify recycled stock for the brochure or a FSC labeled gloss paper?
Or even better why not put it on-line or burn to a disk and save the rain-forest.
Here is a statistic to ponder.

A 24 page brochure during it's life from chain-saw to the final printed product in your hand will have emitted approximately 25 grams of greenhouse gases into atmosphere. When burning it to a humble CD it will had added 350 grams! That's 14 times the weight of CO2e adding to climate change.