3.2.2 How you produce your client content

For many agencies, the production work they do is the biggest impact they control. While clients dictate the budget, you have a role to play in influencing more sustainable production approaches.

Impacts in this area include: energy used in the production process, emissions from travel to shoot locations and waste you produce from the shoot/campaign.

Shape the brief

It’s at the design (creative) stage where many of the production impacts will be baked in. Ask the client upfront, before you prepare a response to a brief – do you want this to be created/produced with sustainability in mind? Are you mindful of the impact? Do you value the non-financial impact of this campaign? Asking these questions could open up interesting conversations with clients, but also gives you the licence to explore approaches that may have a cost implication, but have better green credentials, or have a social impact as part of their work.

See the case study in step 4.1 from AMV BBDO for an example of how discussions with the client led to a virtual production that cut costs, time and emissions (and was an award-winning campaign that generated new business for the agency).

Suggested resources

The resources below will help guide you through the process of understanding the issues, measuring your baseline, setting targets and actions you can take to reduce the environmental impact from your production activities.

• Ad Net Zero – Step 2 – provides an overview of what you need to be thinking about from a carbon emissions perspective in the production stage.
• ADGreen – various guides, tools and training materials to help reduce the waste and carbon impacts of production – including a carbon calculator.
• Green the Bid – various guides and training for agencies, production teams and clients to establish sustainable commercial productions.