Sustainable media isn’t a thing for consumers – yet

Within the next year, three in five people could start to boycott brands that don’t act on climate change, new research says, but the effect of media delivery and consumption of advertising on carbon emissions has so far largely escaped public attention. 

Key findings

A global study covering 24,000 people from 19 countries, by media company dentsu international and Microsoft Advertising, looked at consumer awareness and engagement with issues linked to sustainable consumption and media use. Some of the findings are as follows:

• 91% want brands to demonstrate they are making positive choices about the planet and environment more explicitly.
• More than three quarters (77%) of people globally say that, within five years, they only want to be spending money with brands who are practising green and sustainable advertising.
• 45% of boomers believe consuming ads to be negative for the environment, compared with 71% of Gen Z and 73% of millennials. 
• Just 17% perceive watching TV as contributing to carbon emissions, while 15% of people think browsing the web contributes negatively to climate change; 14% say the same about gaming and 11% in regard to streaming music.

Why it matters

The key to ensuring meaningful progress, the The Rise of Sustainable Media study argues, is to bring the entire media ecosystem together to ensure accurate and transparent measurement and reporting of the real carbon impact of media content throughout the lifecycle of a campaign. That will provide businesses a clear carbon-positive choice for media advertising within their supply chain.

Sourced from dentsu international, Microsoft Advertising