Marketing's Dark Side: Pollution From Product Promotion

Marketing a product can lead to pollution in several ways. Firstly, the production of advertisements, particularly those with high production values or shot overseas, can result in significant carbon emissions. Additionally, electronic signage, such as digital billboards, contributes to the carbon footprint of the advertising industry. The rise of online advertising has also led to increased carbon emissions from web traffic and communications technology. Furthermore, advertising can encourage overconsumption, which has a direct impact on the environment, especially when it involves heavily polluting products or services, such as fossil fuels, aviation, and petrol-engined cars. The influence of advertising on consumer behaviour cannot be overstated, as it promotes materialistic values and goals that often take precedence over positive environmental attitudes and behaviours. Thus, the advertising industry plays a pivotal role in addressing climate change and creating a more sustainable future.

Carbon footprint of advertising

Advertising is an ever-present part of modern life, with the average person encountering between 6,000 to 10,000 brand messages every day. This figure has been driven up by the internet and mobile devices, which have made us constantly connected.

Advertising has a carbon footprint, and the growing number of ads has meant that their environmental impact has also grown. A single ad campaign generates 70 tons of CO2-equivalent emissions, which is the same as what seven people release into the atmosphere in a year. The digital ecosystem is responsible for 3.5% of all global greenhouse gas emissions, and its annual growth is now higher than that of civil aviation.

Where does the carbon footprint come from?

The carbon footprint of advertising can be explained by a variety of factors, both direct and indirect. Firstly, advertising encourages consumerism and the buying of products that have a high environmental cost. A study by the New Weather Institute think tank and Greenpeace calculated that the greenhouse emissions linked to the sales generated worldwide by car and flight advertisements are equivalent to twice the emissions emitted by Spain each year.

Secondly, 15% of global online ads end up on pages created only to serve advertising and not on legitimate media. These websites have a high environmental cost as they involve all the expenses of putting messages out into the world, but they do not actually reach anyone. Reliable sites generate 52% fewer emissions than these types of websites as they have a lower technological load.

Thirdly, the creation and delivery of ads come at a cost to the environment. Ads are behind 10% of all energy expenditure generated by the internet. The creative process, media broadcasting, and targeting all contribute to emissions.

How to reduce pollution

The advertising industry is starting to take notice of its environmental impact and is making moves to create ads more responsibly. GroupM, one of the biggest names in media buying for major brands, has launched a coalition to decarbonize the industry. Its methodology includes new ways to calculate the emissions of each ad and a commitment to fewer, but higher-quality, ads. Other recommendations to reduce emissions include optimizing video content, being mindful of where ads are filmed, and delivering campaigns only over Wi-Fi connections.

Pollution from billboards

Billboards, the "junk mail of the highway", are a form of visual pollution. They are a discordant commercial note in our environment, thrusting advertising into our field of vision and commercialising our neighbourhoods. They are also a significant contributor to carbon emissions.

Billboards are a form of advertising that you cannot turn off or avoid. They are placed so that you cannot avoid seeing them. Billboard companies sell advertising space based on the circulation of the road, and the higher the traffic count, the higher the ad revenue. This is known as the "parasite principle", as billboards feed off roads that they pay almost nothing to build, use, or maintain.

Digital billboards, in particular, are energy-intensive. Research by the Central Texas chapter of the US Green Building Council found that the energy consumption of one digital billboard was 49 times that of a conventional billboard. A spokesman for a major outdoor advertising firm acknowledged that a digital billboard consumes roughly 4,600 kilowatts of electricity per month, compared to 920 kilowatts for the average single-family house.

The advertising industry has a responsibility to address its environmental impact and create more pro-environmental attitudes. Billboards are a significant part of this, with their production and energy consumption contributing to carbon emissions and climate change.

However, it is important to note that the issue of billboard pollution is not insurmountable. Some communities have successfully regulated or banned billboards, and innovative solutions such as Pollumesh, a transparent coating that can be applied to billboards to neutralise pollutants, are being developed to mitigate their environmental impact.

Impact of online ads

The impact of online advertising on the environment is significant. As the primary revenue source for many online services, advertising has exploded in recent years, with total media ad spend projected to exceed $1 trillion by 2025. With online ads accounting for over 60% of global advertising investment in 2022, the internet has become the fastest-growing advertising medium today.

Online advertising is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. The energy and infrastructure required to support online ads have led to estimates that online advertising alone could account for as much as 2.1–3.9% of global emissions, which is comparable to the environmental impact of the aviation industry. The programmatic/digital infrastructure supporting these ads churns out greenhouse gases at an alarming rate.

The energy burden of online advertising is considerable. One study found that the online advertising industry consumed as much as 106 TWh of energy and 1059 TWh of infrastructure globally in 2016 alone. This is higher than the combined Scope 1 and 2 (direct and indirect) emissions of a major polluter in the oil and gas industry such as Shell, which emitted roughly 58 Mt CO2e in 2022 alone.

The global impact of online advertising is multidimensional. Online advertising affects the environment by consuming significant amounts of energy, leading to the production of CO2e emissions. Hundreds of billions of ad dollars are exchanged yearly, placing online advertising in a significant economic role. It has become an important and acknowledged component of the online-bound society, largely due to its integration with the internet and the revenue generated through it.

With the ever-increasing number of ads that users see on apps and websites, there is a need for more powerful and energy-consuming infrastructure to support the amount of traffic. A study by Pärssinen and colleagues found that online advertising "consumes vast amounts of energy" and contributes around 10-20% of the total internet infrastructure's consumption. This increase in infrastructure and energy consumption has a direct impact on the environment, contributing to global emissions and the carbon footprint of the internet.

As the world becomes increasingly digitized, the internet's carbon footprint is expected to grow. This is driven by rising data traffic, energy demands from Information and Communication Technology (ICT), and the expansion of data centers and network services. From 2015 to 2022, key digital and energy indicators surged dramatically: the number of internet users, internet traffic, and data center workload increased by 78%, 600%, and 340%, respectively. This growth in the digital industry, fueled by online advertising, has a direct impact on the environment, contributing to global emissions and energy consumption.

Emissions from emails

The average email will emit 4g of CO2-equivalent gases. This number seems small, but with billions of emails sent every day, the emissions add up. In 2021, more than 306 billion emails were sent, and this number is expected to exceed 376 billion per day by 2025.

The emissions from an email depend on several factors. These include the device used, the time taken to write and read the email, whether it includes pictures or attachments, and the efficiency of the data centres through which it passes.

Spam emails that are picked up by spam filters and never reach your inbox produce the least emissions. At the other end of the scale are mass mailings that take a long time to write but are only read by a few people.

According to Mike Berners-Lee, author of 'How Bad are Bananas?: The Carbon Footprint of Everything', an email can produce between 0.03g and 26g of CO2-equivalent gases. Berners-Lee estimates that globally, emails could account for as much as 150 million tonnes of CO2-equivalent gases in 2019, or about 0.3% of the world's carbon footprint.

To put this into perspective, Berners-Lee states that average email usage is equivalent to driving a small petrol car for around 128 miles. While the impact of email is not the biggest carbon problem humanity faces, it is an easy one to tackle.

There are several ways to reduce the emissions associated with emails:

• Only subscribe to news services that you want.
• Unsubscribe from mailing lists that are no longer relevant.
• Ensure the mailing lists you use are up to date.
• Write concisely and keep messages as brief as possible.
• Only message those who need the information; don't copy in people unnecessarily.

By adopting these simple tactics, you can not only reduce your carbon footprint but also help to tackle the stress and anxiety that can come from email overload.

Greenwashing

• Being purposely vague or non-specific about a company's operations or materials used.
• Applying intentionally misleading labels such as "green" or "eco-friendly".
• Emphasising a single environmental attribute while ignoring other impacts.
• Communicating the sustainability attributes of a product in isolation from brand activities.
• Using nature-based imagery on product packaging and in advertisements to imply sustainability.
• Using buzzwords like "natural" or "eco-friendly" that have no legal weight.
• Using official-looking labels or symbols to imply recyclability.

Frequently asked questions