Ad industry grapples with role selling consumption in climate crisis

Does being an effective agency mean helping sell more products or can it mean helping mitigate climate emergency?

When Bartle Bogle Hegarty won one of the advertising industry’s most coveted prizes – the Effectiveness award – for their amazing car-selling prowess, two executives from another company worked out that the resultant carbon emissions of the extra 132,700 Audis that BBH had managed to shift came to about 5.2m tonnes, roughly equivalent to the annual CO₂ emissions of Uganda.

The work has been a lightning rod in an industry that is deeply divided over its role in the climate crisis. There is increasing agreement that although individual behaviour should not be the primary focus for change, some individuals’ behaviour – namely that of the world’s wealthiest people – has a much bigger impact not only on global emissions but also on broader economic and political trends. But how should the advertising and PR industries grapple with the overconsumption of the top 10%?