TBC
Sustainability: A priority for action By George Porteous
Hot on the heels of COP26, sustainability is high on the agenda for the CMO. Brands are increasingly responding to public, consumer and shareholder pressure to make real changes. At AAR, we’ve had many conversations with senior marketers over the last year around moving sustainability from being a ‘nice to have’ to a priority for action. Many are looking for a clear plan to get to net zero emissions. They are, therefore, expecting plans and data on emissions from their agency partners, since they form part of their own supply chain. As AdGreen is helping to highlight, there are major opportunities to reduce emissions across the marketing supply chain including travel, office energy use, materials and energy use in production processes including film and still shoots, printing and POS materials, inks, plastics, shipping.
realise the very real commercial opportunity to have sustainable innovations fuel their brand and communications strategies. AAR wants to play its part in driving change and so we have three priorities in this area:
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We have completed a carbon audit with Green Element, the sustainability consultancy, to measure our footprint and we will define our roadmap to net zero.
❷ We will explore ways to help brand owners measure the sustainability of their agency partners as part of their selection process.
❸ We will continue to offer up inspiration for agencies following the recent Town Hall where we invited John Grant, the green marketing expert, to talk about how sustainability can form part of agencies’ business models. ■
There’s also a broader need for sustainability to become more central to marketing functions and marketing sustainability where they have often existed separately, and for brands to 17
