http://www.guardian.co.uk/sustainability/business-advertising-eco-metrics
guardian.co.uk, Monday 27 July 2009 19.12 BST
A holistic approach The near 300-strong advertising department at GNM has embraced sustainability in a holistic way, not only seeing it as a way of securing new business but also as an opportunity to strengthen the culture of the department. Commercial director Adam Freeman was inspired by the leader business framework developed by sustainable development charity Forum for the Future. It encourages businesses to identify the areas that are most relevant and offer the highest impact. Our own interpretation of this approach is to be an ethical leader business by focusing on two key areas. First, the ad department wants to increase its share of the green market by developing new products and services that are both environmentally friendly and socially positive. We aim to increase our proportion of green and ethical revenue from 4% in 2009 to 7% in 2010. Second, the department aims to strengthen its brand and internal culture to attract, keep, motivate and reward the best staff. We believe that looking after the long-term health of individuals has a positive impact on a company's commercial performance and success. The ethical leadership initiative was launched with an "appreciative inquiry", in which more than 60 managers addressed the question: what does a successful and sustainable ad department look like in 2012? This process is made up of four stages: dreaming, visioning, defining and delivery. The ad department has spent the last year working on the vision – to create an inclusive and sustainable culture that develops the best people to achieve global commercial excellence – and drawing up the work streams needed to make it a reality. In the next year we will focus on delivering them.
Green business Guardian Green Ad Network The Guardian Green Ad Network, the largest of its kind in the world, fulfils our vision of creating new business opportunities from being more sustainable as well as enabling small and emerging companies to develop revenue streams. The network now consists of almost 60 of the best green websites in the world, all of which we believe add something important to the debate around sustainability. Membership is vetted by our editorial environmental specialists to ensure quality.
We sell advertising space on these sites and share the revenue this generates. This offers publishers a way to monetise their content and advertisers a way of communicating to an engaged audience of over 4 million monthly unique users. The network has shown excellent growth over the last year, with traffic up 241%. Topics currently covered by our publishers include clean technology (Cleantech.com), ethical living (Grist), sustainable travel (The Man in Seat 61) and green motoring (Whatgreencar.com). We have run successful campaigns from companies as diverse as Ecover, British Gas and CocaCola. The Green Ad Network also links to the Guardian's editorial network of environment sites. In the case of sites such as Business Green, Inhabitat and Carbon Commentary, the Guardian also uses their editorial content. This enhances our coverage and contributes to the site's traffic, as well as driving users to their sites. Measuring the CO2 impact of media schedules We recently launched eco:metrics, a world-first web-based tool that enables us to measure the CO2 impact of our own media schedules. We are offering this tool to clients and agencies. It includes data on supplements, microsites, audio, video, mobile, events and promotional ads. Freeman says: "We will use this knowledge to have an open and collaborative dialogue with our advertisers, which explores more sustainable ways to do business. In short, we want to combine creativity and innovation with sustainable thinking and best practice. Our aim is also to introduce tools and metrics to which the whole media industry can contribute. We hope that this will add to the debate around sustainable and effective marketing communications." We will continue to gather data on the CO2 impact of the different types of media solutions as the year progresses and GNM will use the tool to make more informed decisions about its own marketing campaigns. eco:metrics was launched to the industry with a trade marketing campaign in May 2009.
Ad department culture Talent management: The Ad Academy The last employee survey showed that fewer than half of all staff felt there were opportunities to develop their careers within GNM. The ad department is therefore developing a more structured and transparent talent-mapping process around people's individual career expectations, being open and honest about their potential within the department and providing the training they need to achieve this. Transparency around pay The GNM-wide survey also showed that only a third of staff understood how their pay is determined. The ad management team therefore committed to being more transparent during the last annual pay review. Where possible, members of the ad dept were shown an internal salary
range for their role that was dependent on skills and experience. External benchmarking data provided by a third party was also used to provide a broader context to havea discussion around pay. Community involvement The ad department made a decision to formally support the company's local community engagement programme. This was in part a result of a survey which showed low awareness of the programme itself and a nervousness in staff as to their suitability as volunteers. There was also a recognition that the depth of skills within the department would be invaluable to local charities and schools. This work formed the centrepiece of the 2009 ad department conference. Teams, made up of members of the ad department worked for a day on one of 16 community projects around our offices in London and Manchester. This provided an opportunity for staff to develop their skills, build a sense of teamwork and make a real difference in the local community.