We need to be as accountable on sustainability as on budgets

From my background in advertising agency production, I know that agency producers are a responsible, passionate, and solutions-focussed bunch. So, I was delighted to be asked to help represent agencies on the AdGreen Advisory Board when I started at the IPA in 2022, as I know we can and will be a key partner in the journey towards sustainability.

When I was a working producer, we all had an awareness that climate change was a problem, and that longhaul flights to shoots were carbon intensive. But in the absence of routine measurement, behaviour change was minimal. This is why AdGreen and carbon calculation are essential.

Roundtables and workshops to share learnings have proved very productive, and the great unity on feedback and further potential solutions served to show how much good-will and determination there is out there. It was also a testament to how strong the relationships are, and need to be, between clients, agencies, and production suppliers, as a base to build on.

Some of our industry’s most creative work has developed in response to constraints and the channelling of evidence and insight, so I know sustainability is another opportunity to be grasped. Only through enhanced viability and visibility of carbon measurement can we galvanise buy-in, change and upstream impacts on the creative dev, planning and pitching phases of projects.

Eliot Liss is Head of Production at the IPA. 

This piece was first published as part of the 2022 AdGreen Annual Review which covers the work of AdGreen throughout the year and features thought leadership pieces from AdGreen, ISBA, the IPA, the APA and the AOP as well as the first dataset from the AdGreen carbon calculator. AdGreen are hosting a bespoke event about the report for creative agencies on Tuesday 25 April - register for free.