The struggle to sustain sustainability

Just a few years ago, sustainability was advertising’s No. 1 chart-topper, leading industry conversations as it emerged from the remote viewing platform of the pandemic. 

This shift fuelled a drive toward more sustainable productions and messaging, with brands entering the space to advertise their wares – and to wear their hearts on a visible sleeve as green champions, if not greenwashing ones.

But that was then, and come 2025, that No. 1 spot appears to be occupied by a very different kind of bottom line – with a new administration bending facts to its will in the US. Not that sustainable initiatives have gone away – pioneering advocacy groups likes AdGreen and Ad Net Zero are leading initiatives and developing and refining their tools for the trade to help make production footprints smaller. 

It’s been demoralising to watch some companies that we’ve worked with drop their morals at the door immediately, on day two of the administration. 

But with what is still (at the time of writing) the world’s leading superpower aggressively dismantling sustainable directives as well tearing up a slew of long-embedded DEI initiatives – the removal of which is as painful for the wider body politic as pulling wisdom teeth – many fear a shockwave of divisive change not only across governance and industry, but through the world of branding, advertising and communications too.  

Priorities around sustainability seem to be shifting as world leaders bend the facts around climate change.

What happens in the US usually spreads outwards. If global corporations think it politic to reel back on sustainability messaging, what do their advertisers do? Follow suit, and swallow their ethics, or drop the account and stand by their values?   

Working out of San Francisco on the West Coast, Avocados and Coconuts is a progressive shop in a progressive town in a progressive state. Talking to its founder and EP Dalia Burde and ECD Amani King, you get a sense of how those shockwaves are hitting home, but also, how they are hitting back.

“It’s a crazy time to be looking at this stuff, in the US in particular,” says King. “We’re in a drastic situation environmentally, and it’s absurd to pretend otherwise, but it’s daunting when the leadership in your country is denying these things. It’s a time where you have to be clear with your own commitment and your own actions, and in our business – what do we take on, which places to we try to amplify – those things become that much more critical.” 

We may not have anyone to buy our products if the environment is trashed. So I see it as an opportunity, and it may take a little bit before people find their voices again and decide how they want to be in this political moment.

Values have been called the new bottom line for brands and their advertisers, but it turns out that sometimes they are not even skin deep. “I never imagined that the companies I thought were committed to DEI would drop it overnight and make a stand about dropping it, and falling to their knees,” says Burde, who founded Avocado & Coconuts in 2011. 

“I’m hoping that people aren’t turning their backs on sustainability,” she adds, “but I do think it will be less of a priority, over the next four years. It’s been demoralising to watch some companies that we’ve worked with drop their morals at the door immediately, on day two of the administration. So I really hope that brands and advertisers don’t turn their back on the sustainable approach.” 

Sustainability’s shadow is greenwashing, for which numerous brands and campaigns have been pulled up over the years. But at least its presence demonstrates the importance of being part of the conversation, even on false pretences.  “Even greenwashing attempts keeps the conversation going about the environment,” says King. “But my guess is that a lot of companies are going to turn their backs on talking about this stuff. They’ll feel they’ve been let off the hook, or feel afraid to fight that fight when they have an administration that’s openly hostile to a lot of this messaging.” 

There are plenty of people who won’t change their mind, who are committed to it, and those consumers will be a lot easier to convert over to brands that take it seriously.

While a corporate exodus from the conversation on sustainability is one to set off alarm bells about where such a migration takes us, King sees the benefits too. “It is also a huge opportunity for companies willing to take a stand and for their message to be more clearly articulated,” he says, “and to show personal responsibility. We do this because it’s good business, it makes our business stronger, and our business more profitable."

"Ignoring sustainability is not a good long game. We may not have anyone to buy our products if the environment is trashed. So I see it as an opportunity, and it may take a little bit before people find their voices again and decide how they want to be in this political moment, but I do see companies that have always been leaders, like Patagonia, coming out and saying this is where we stand, we do this because this is our organising principle.” 

Burde agrees and expands on the power of the values-led consumer. “There are plenty of people who won’t change their mind, who are committed to it, and those consumers will be a lot easier to convert over to brands that take it seriously. There will be a double-down commitment from a lot of people and really supporting the brands that actually care about sustainable practices. The large corporations that may not have cared but felt pressure to do so, they may abandon it, and that will have an effect. It will reveal who IS committed to it.” 

With regular clients such as outdoors brand All Trails and waste disposal experts Mill, Avocados & Coconuts keeps it production footprints as small as possible – whether that’s cutting down on paper work, cutting out single use plastics, or reducing the number of people on location. Outside of brand messaging, it’s the means of production that defines advertising’s sustainability – or lack of it – and the tools to measure that footprint, and the means to reduce it, are at hand, and evolving.  

“The industry can help itself by getting more granular measurements. It only works if it is based in truth and is also workable. You can’t manage what you can’t measure.” 

Both Ad Net Zero, straddling the US and Europe, and the UK’s AdGreen, are industry initiatives to push sustainability through the entire production process. AdGreen’s Carbon Calculator, launched in the autumn of 2021, was recently relaunched with new features, including upfront insights into a production’s carbon footprint at the ideation, scripting or bidding stages. “It’s based on benchmarks we’ve worked on that are based on what we know about production and what people have told us,” says AdGreen’s global director Jo Fenn.  

“We have a number of really engaged production companies who are so supportive of what we’ve done, and have given us great feedback. They see it as a way to differentiate themselves from competitors as well as having a tool that can look at what their emissions are. So we support those with ambitious internal policies and those who are trying to ‘do the right thing’ when it comes to measurement and production. And we’ve had amazing engagements from really large brands.” 

Received wisdom is often that sustainability is a cost, not a benefit, but John Osborn and Anthony Falco of Ad Net Zero are ready to challenge such assumptions. “There are passionate people who want to do great things for the planet,” says Osborn, “but the ad industry was built to serve advertisers. We’re here to answer the call, so we’re trying to frame it as helping businesses drive better outcomes.” 

“Historically there has been a disconnect between business performance and sustainability,” adds Falco. “Are they intertwined? Absolutely! Have people seen that they are intertwined? I’m not sure that they have. What we say is that it isn’t something that sits alone, as a crusade, or something for the people who care. This is fundamental to long-term business success. That’s now coming through more clearly across the industry.” 

What may not seem like a carbon-intensive production, may all of a sudden not be so simple, not so cheap, and have a lot of emissions associated with it.

Osborn describes such entwinement as bridge-building, and while any ‘hoist the flag’ moment is some way off, the work goes on, whether that’s leading town halls at corporations or inveigling senior teams and employees into an eco-system of development that is more interconnected.  

The three pillars of good business are time, quality and cost. Now, says Osborn, there’s a fourth pillar, which is the metrics around sustainability. And it’s the metrics that can help drive growth when it comes to sustainability initiatives. “The industry can help itself by getting more granular measurements,” he says. “It only works if it is based in truth and is also workable. You can’t manage what you can’t measure.” 

It’s the metrics that can help drive growth when it comes to sustainability initiatives, says Osborn.

Ad Net Zero has launched its Global Media Sustainability Framework (GMSF) to create a level playing field of accurate emissions measurements using a consistent global formulae. It will, hopes Falco, encourage the desire for measurement from brands, and their partners, and down through the supply chain.  

“What we see is that companies understand that when it comes to production travel is the biggest area of opportunity,” says Osborn. “Then set design, power sources, generators, right down to the meals, car pools and plastic bottles. When Covid hit, travel stopped, and the industry found a way forward, and then everything went back to what it was before, but now we are getting out sea legs, and seeing systematic shifts happening,” he adds. “New ecosystems re forming, partnerships are shifting, sustainable shifts are being made, with partners, particularly in digital media.” 

It’s going to force the industry to look at its commercial models. And it will break down silos and hopefully forge a more collaborative and fluid exchange of assets and ideas.

The problem is, as Jo Fenn at AdGreen admits, is that one size rarely fits all when it comes to a production. “Every project is so different. What may not seem like a carbon-intensive production, may all of a sudden not be so simple, not so cheap, and have a lot of emissions associated with it.”  

Then there is the potential of using AI innovations to shrink the real-world footprint. “Will it replace shooting altogether? The trajectory suggests that it will,” says Falco. “Will it be a tool to create a sense of a bigger production, or to create expensive location shots? That’s being done now. It’s another tool, and it’s unstoppable, and when used responsibly, will be to the benefit, probably, of the production, and will have a positive sustainability impact. But,” he adds “the computing power to create those images is an issue.”  

There is also the potential of using AI innovations in production to help reduce real-world footprint.

It certainly is, but the Digital Twin project, which uses NVIDIA’s Omniverse AI collaborating platform, aims to make inroads on reducing the carbon cost of shoots for global behemoths like Dove. “The work we did with Dove is a great example of just how powerful and efficient the tech we’re using is,” says Steve Barnes, founding partner at Collective. “Digital twin technology allowed us to take a single digital truth – the master copy, if you like – and create a whole suite of product variants from it, which were 100 per cent physically accurate right down to the level of viscosity of the liquids inside the packs. 

The end result was an enormous range of marketing assets delivered at scale and pace without the need for all the waste and inefficiencies you would associate with traditional production processes.” Its impact, he believes, will resonate through the industry. “It’s going to force the industry to look at its production methodologies,” he says. “It’s going to force the industry to look at its commercial models. And it will break down silos and hopefully forge a more collaborative and fluid exchange of assets and ideas.” 

For PNG, our latest project, we achieved a reduction of 38 per cent in transport emissions, and the managed waste was 83 per cent reused or recycled.

Over at global production house Vagabond’s offices in Colombia, breaking down the shooting logistics to draw out sustainable outcomes – and partnering with the innovative Green Stage for virtual shoots – is a priority for a country attracting global clients to film across its s richly varied – and delicately balanced – ecosystems.

“We’ve used remote viewing and reduced the number of people who travel to the absolute minimum,” says EP Pablo Tourrenc. “It’s a new standard we’ve all managed to adjust to, including our clients. It shows how resilient and adaptable we are in this industry. To go from one barely conceivable idea of doing everything remotely to actual fact, and shifting to that in a few years. It’s the right thing to do and we’re following a general trend.”