On December 3rd 2024, Ad Net Zero held its 2nd UK Leadership Breakfast in London, bringing together leaders from across the advertising ecosystem to hear from industry experts, fellow supporters, and headlines from Ad Net Zero’s latest annual Progress Report.
The message this year is clear. Climate risk is a real commercial risk. However, there are commercial opportunities too, only available to those acting quickly to seek out a better kind of growth.
After an introduction from Sebastian Munden, Global Chair of Ad Net Zero’s Board, Hannah Harrison, Chief Sustainability Officer at WPP, opened up the event, which was hosted at the WPP Sea Containers office, with a strong call to action for the room, stating that climate change demands braver, bolder, more creative, but also more collaborative action. For Hannah, this means mainstreaming sustainability into every brief, as well as into the way we track and incentivise progress with our people, our agency partners and our clients. Clearly, this can’t be addressed purely by sustainability teams, but instead needs to be delivered through all of our core businesses.
The event keynote was then delivered by Dr Matthew Bell, Global Climate Change and Sustainability Services Leader at EY. He presented key messages from their latest report: ‘Beyond sustainability as usual: How business transformation can unlock the new economy’.
Offering actionable advice, Matthew gave some examples of where your business can start, which reflect the messaging Ad Net Zero has been adopting for a while. These were:
- Mobilize behind a long-term vision for your organization.
- Start where possible, but don’t stay there.
- Use influence to mobilise critical mass.
- Help bring new economy concepts to the mainstream.
Ultimately, EY asked our leaders to redefine the value of their own offerings, recognising that “financial capital is only one dimension of a thriving economy and society, and that human and planetary flourishing depends on healthy stocks and flows of all forms of capital”.
This resonated with the priorities coming out of Ad Net Zero’s report, which shows the progress of the industry since last year. Sebastian outlined that the cost of inaction for the climate, as well as the “an economic opportunity if we get it right”. Rosi Croom, Senior Communications Manager at Ad Net Zero, followed, adding details from the Annual Report , and stressing the need to work together to “safeguard the trust that our wider stakeholders have in the industry” by building credible carbon emissions plans.
Elle Chartres, UK Director at Ad Net Zero, then provided a holistic view of approaches to sustainable development in the industry, with a panel discussion entitled ‘Futureproofing our industry & leading from the top’, featuring Sarah Jones, Director of Planning at Sky (winners of the UK Grand Prix at the 2024 Campaign Ad Net Zero Awards); Georgina Bramall, Marketing Strategy Director, giffgaff; Conrad Persons, President, Grey London; and Sarah Lewin, Global Sustainability Brand Marketing and Comms Leader, EY. The aim was to provide tangible action points for the audience, so Sarah Jones discussed the 6-weekly cross-team sustainability updates which bring the whole company together on this issue regularly, while Georgina described giffgaff’s adaptive and iterative business model that reflects their values. Conrad Persons in turn emphasised the creative power that the advertising industry holds in solving a client’s problems through humour, creativity, and often simplicity, as they did with their award winning work with Makro, addressing the issue of food waste at large in Colombia. To this point, Sarah Lewin highlighted EY’s adoption of an immersive experience– which they have taken 5-6,000 board members and corporate executives through thus far- espousing the power of storytelling and emotion to communicate the issue of climate change and encourage buy in from these industry leaders.
The event was rounded out by Lisa Boyles at giffgaff, accompanied by Tim Pritchard, Executive Director, Head of Content and Responsible Media at MG OMD, talking about their collaborative work on the ‘Up to Good Collective Fund’, and giffgaff’s ask for MGOMD to deliver value for the brand while acting according to the ‘Up to Good’ mantra.
Going forward into 2025, the focus for Ad Net Zero itself, as Seb Munden put it, will be on the Global Media Sustainability Framework, as well as the Every Brief Counts pilot – two significant pieces of work being carried out by the Ad Net Zero team with its supporters. The focus for supporter businesses, however, will need to be faster delivery of real emissions reductions, and work that delivers better growth for clients, for the industry, and for the planet.
You can read the full report here.
