Sustainable Advertising Partnership

Reality

Climate change and sustainability are of growing concern to consumers, investors, government and the media. The effects of climate change are becoming increasingly visible and a global consensus has formed that human induced causes of global warming must be addressed. A growing number of brands are making substantial commitments to developing and marketing sustainable products, reporting their greenhouse gas emissions and taking steps to transform their business operations and supply chain practices.

Facts

Over seven billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent greenhouse gases were emitted into the Earth's atmosphere by the US in 2004 and a significant amount are associated with energy and materials used in advertising and publishing supply chains.¹

Papermaking, ink making, printing, logistics and other activities required to publish and distribute print media are energy intensive industries that are highly dependent on imported petrochemical and fossil fuel inputs. According to the International Energy Agency, the pulp and paper industry alone is the fourth largest industrial use of electricity consuming 5.9 ExaJoules of energy in 2003 (6% of total industrial energy use).²
In 2005 US advertisers spent over $65 billion dollars on print media advertising and created over 250,000 ad pages in more than 50,000 publications that reach hundreds of millions of consumers annually.³ These media expenditures create millions of jobs in the graphic arts industry but they also result in a mountain of waste paper that constitutes America's single largest export by volume.⁴
A single ad run in a popular consumer magazine can result in tons of carbon dioxide emissions when supply chain factors associated with papermaking, printing and logistics as well as land ill disposal or incineration of post-consumer and unsold media are taken into consideration.

1 http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggrpt/index
.html
2 http://www.iea.org/Textbase/work/ 2006/
pulppaper/discussion_paper.pdf
3 TNS Media Intelligence and the Publishers InformationBureau
4 US Dept of Commerce

This has led to increased editorial coverage about the "greening" of business and a bumper crop of new sustainable lifestyle publications, "eco" issues and special advertising supplements. Publishers and brand leaders have intensified their support for the creation of public service ads intended to raise awareness about sustainability and climate change. However, going forward, advertisers, publishers and their supply chain partners will be called upon to do more than raise awareness. They will be expected to seek solutions... and take action themselves.

Responsible brands will increasingly be expected to address climate change and sustainability in all aspects of their businesses, including the sustainability of their advertising media choices and the impacts attributable to their supply chain influence. In particular, publishers will be called upon to identify, quantify, offset and ultimately reduce the climate change impacts associated with their advertising related supply chain practices. As a result, companies in the publishing supply chain will be called upon to reinvent their business practices. Energy costs, energy supply, climate change and sustainable fiber sourcing and recycling are among the core issues that advertising and publishing supply chains will have to address.

In response, the Institute for Sustainable Communication (ISC) invites your participation in The Sustainable Advertising Partnership, an inclusive non-partisan coalition of advertisers, publishers, advertising agencies, printers, paper companies, retailers and other key stakeholders dedicated to fostering the widespread adoption of supply chain practices that address climate change and sustainability.

Organized as a project of the non-profit it Institute for Sustainable Communication (ISC), the Sustainable Advertising Partnership works collaboratively with business, government, non-governmental organizations, and other stakeholders to promote the development, dissemination and use of information, tools, best practices, management resources and investments supporting the sustainable transformation of advertising and publishing supply chains.

Rationale

Advertising and publishing supply chains must be reinvented if they are to be secure, sustainable and competitive in the face of rising energy costs, energy and petrochemical supply risks, population growth and climate change.

Print can play an important and effective role in a brand's advertising media mix. However, as currently produced, print advertising results in millions of tons of greenhouse gas emissions associated with the production, distribution and fate of magazines, newspapers, freestanding inserts, direct mail, outdoor advertising and catalogs. More digital media and less print is not the answer... responsible management and transformation of print media supply chains is.

Benefits

Sustainable Advertising Partnership members receive:

Association with insightful brand leaders, publishers and supply chain companies who are working towards common goals.

Timely independent assessment of GHG emissions and sustainability impacts.

Access to expert advisory services, targeted research, best practices and benchmark data, tools and training resources including the ISC Design for Sustainability Dashboard, a web-based tool which enables users to model and predict the environmental and climate change impacts associated with print design and production specifications.

Support for cost-effective retirement and purchase of carbon offsets for advertising and printmedia related emissions.
Targeted investment in print-media related sequestration, renewable energy and conservation projects.
Recognition for measurable actions taken to address climate change and sustainability.

Neither print nor digital media advertising, as currently produced and managed, are sustainable... but they can be if advertisers and their supply chain partners work together. Collaboration is essential because print media manufacturing and transportation supply chains are complex, highly fragmented, waste-intensive systems that employ vast quantities of paper, fossil fuel energy and petrochemical products.

Through participation in the Sustainable Advertising Partnership, your company will demonstrate its leadership in addressing climate change and sustainability. By working together across the supply chain with us, you will foster the widespread growth of sustainable business practices and transform the ways in which energy, materials and other resources are used throughout the advertising/ publishing lifecycle.
Join Us

To join the Sustainable Advertising Partnership or to learn more, please contact us.