GARM starts work on Media Sustainability

The effort forms part of WFA’s membership of Ad Net Zero and delivering on its goals of building an industry-wide approach to measure the carbon emissions of media campaigns. It will sit alongside WFA’s Planet Pledge and the sustainability goals expressed in the WFA’s 2023 Media Charter.

The new workstream will have three immediate goals:

1. Create momentum via a Quick Action Guide: equip media leaders with a series of voluntary and tangible steps that can reduce the environmental impact of advertising campaigns and a set of criteria to consider with partners.
2. Benchmark current media carbon measurement and estimation practices: create an industry-wide forum to suggest common definitions and measures to assist industry participants in measuring the environmental impact of their media campaigns.
3. Develop a global media carbon framework: develop a flexible measurement and reporting system based on aggregated data, to be voluntarily implemented at local level by National Advertisers Associations, that will facilitate the measurement and reporting of media carbon emissions.

GARM and WFA will now be reaching out to marketers to join GARM’s community calls on sustainability, where they discuss best practices and review proposed media sustainability solutions. It will also be looking for experts to engage in cross-industry working groups to develop voluntary global standards to help drive transparency on media’s environmental impacts.

“Sustainability is a key goal for our industry as we look to develop the new circular approaches to marketing outlined in our recent Sustainable Marketing 2030 study. The right metrics and the right frameworks are a key part of the roadmap that will make this the norm for all brands. It’s an urgent challenge and members of GARM and the WFA community will be working hard to deliver effective, voluntary solutions,” said Stephan Loerke, CEO of WFA.