Use your storytelling superpower to inspire internal and external stakeholders by promoting the sustainable actions and campaigns you work on.
Promote and highlight all the sustainability-led creative work that the agency does internally. You can also inspire your employees by promoting what’s happening in the wider sector to help inspire others and keep it front of their mind. This can be collated as a knowledge bank so when people are working on briefs, they can tap into this for inspiration.
There are some fantastic awards schemes that are already out there and flying the flag for sustainability – these include the Ad Net Zero Awards. Have a look and see what categories you could enter to boost the recognition of the work you’re doing to make a difference.
We encourage anyone involved in judging advertising awards to suggest to the organisers that every category should have sustainability built into the criteria. In 2023, sustainability criteria were introduced into every award entry at Cannes Lions. [This is action 4 in the Ad Net Zero charter].
Consider publishing an annual impact report, which can also be shared with clients and used as a new business resource. Some agencies do this already, including B Corp businesses. The metrics outlined in the Take Action section of this guide could provide the starting point for any impact reporting.
Finally, in your showreels and on your websites, make your sustainable campaigns (production, placement and content) front and centre on your websites – and use this as a starting point in conversations with clients.
When presenting options to clients, aim to highlight the most sustainable options and include the benefits of choosing that option. Whether it’s supporting them to meet their wider corporate targets, setting new standards in the sector or using new technology which can be used as a talking point to gain additional media coverage about the campaign. Or it could be cost reductions through efficiency gains or use of technology such as virtual production that can drastically reduce travel emissions.
This is particularly important if the sustainable option requires more investment by the client. You need to highlight the additional, sometimes indirect, benefits of choosing the sustainable option.
(Initial) Focus: Celebrate the internal launch of Bupa’s new sustainability strategy, which highlights the intersection between human health and the health of the planet.
Challenge: The client wanted a simple way to explain why this topic is so important to the business. AMV BBDO’s answer was to capture the message in a film, in which Bupa commits to care for the planet as its oldest patient.
Idea: The agency team proposed two options – one that answered the brief directly, and a bigger, more ambitious script that required taking people in lab coats to the Amazon jungle, the Arctic, the Sahara desert, capital cities around the world performing medical examinations that would otherwise be done on people, on the planet. Bupa loved the idea but had concerns on the scale and environmental impact. AMV BBDO loved it too and worked with the AMV Green team (internal sustainability consultancy) to find an alternative way to do this with almost zero emissions (comparatively). AMV Green underlined that it would be a leap of faith creatively because of the use of new technology – virtual production.
Bupa loved the idea, and so AMV BBDO’s creative team and sustainability specialists worked together, to break new ground in virtual production. The resulting 90” Bupa ad was produced by the agency’s in-house production company Flare Productions, and shot almost entirely using virtual production from the comfort of a studio in North London, requiring zero international travel.
The AdGreen carbon calculator was used to compare emissions with traditional production methods, showing the film to be 95% less carbon intensive compared to filming on location.
Result: The sustainability story formed part of the press release that launched the film, creating a platform for Bupa to talk to the industry.
The film went on to win at the APA Ideas Awards (2023) and has generated a lot of interest. It has led to AMV BBDO winning work with new clients who wanted to utilise virtual production for sustainability reasons.
The resources below will kick-start your knowledge bank of inspiration for your creative teams. Beyond this we recommend joining industry groups on LinkedIn, and many of the collaboration groups and movements in step 4.2 have newsletters that will provide weekly or monthly doses of inspiration.