You ask anyone on the street to name a brand or marketing firm, the vast majority of people will have no idea. Yet these firms whose names you don’t know guide decision-making on vast corporate budgets and play a huge role in deciding what line is going to push audiences of tens of millions to buy a product or service. For example, total media advertising spend globally is expected to hit nearly US$900 billion this year! And these ad firms are giants. For example, WPP is one of the largest advertising and marketing groups in the world. It owns hundreds of agencies which brought in a combined US$18 billion in revenue in 2022 and has more than 100,000 employees. The scale, and therefore responsibility, of these firms when it comes to moving the needle on sustainability and positive climate action is massive.

A classic argument thrown out by brand or marketing agencies working in or with damaging sectors or entities – think authoritarian governments or fossil fuel companies – is that by working with these organisations, they can drive change from the inside, changing perspectives and moving them on to a path of good. The reality is this rarely, if ever happens, and ultimately the agency is willing to put their principles aside to keep the cash coming in.

But there are a lot of agencies out there that have drawn a line in the sand and are not working with clients that damage society or the environment. Just how far are agencies willing to go to push themselves and their clients when it comes to reducing carbon emissions, protecting the environment and taking practical, tangible climate action? To explore this question, we invited agencies across APAC, North America and Europe to share their thoughts (anonymous of course) on sustainability, what they are doing internally and the position they take when it comes to championing sustainability with their clients.

Our sample size ended up rather small – only 67 respondents. But we heard from participants across the agency hierarchy – from founders, to executive management, to entry-level employees and freelancers. We left space for detailed, open-ended responses which provide a nuanced, personal perspective on the challenges for an agency to take a firmer line with themselves and their clients. Let’s take a look at the key takeaways:

Minds are aligned but the path is unclear

Most of the participants (90%) see issues including climate change, the environment and sustainability as important to them personally. Despite this, most agencies are unclear how they can turn this importance into tactical action. More than half of respondents said they don’t have a sustainability strategy in place and only a third are working on one. And the majority (nearly 80%) have no timelines to work towards.

One interesting highlight across the data was that many employees do not actually know if their firm has a sustainability strategy, has set timelines or is actively monitoring emissions in some way. This exposes a potential lack of communication from leadership or stakeholders on where things stand and the desired direction moving forward. There may be great things happening behind closed doors that employees could get involved in and help drive if they are simply told about them!

Sustainability doesn’t take a front-row seat

Despite the global scientific community sharing an overwhelming majority consensus on climate change and risks to ecosystems, resources and livelihoods, action continues to be a low priority for agencies.

Our survey highlighted a wide range of reasons that highlight the commitment challenges that agencies are experiencing. A lack of time and resource was a frequent factor, with more ‘near-term pressing business issues’ taking attention. This is certainly a challenge we face at Eat Creative as we progress our own sustainability journey. Interestingly, with a much changed work structure – a lot more employees working from home – agency leaders voiced concerns of putting the onus of sustainability action on employees and infringing in their personal lives. Additionally a broader apathy of clients and employees not demanding these actions, has kept a sustainability strategy further down the list for many.

And it’s definitely not a conversation with suppliers and clients

Sustainability within agencies does not only touch the operations of the agency itself but also the organisations around it – your suppliers, your partners, and of course your clients. What actions are they taking, if any? Do they align with your values? Can they help you in turn become a more sustainable or climate positive business? With Deloitte stating that Scope 3 emissions (those your agency is indirectly responsible for up and down the supply chain) account for, on average, 70% of a company’s carbon footprint, this is an area all agencies should be investigating.

However, our study found that most respondents (70%) do not ask at all about the sustainability position, strategy or initiatives of their suppliers. And while more than half of respondents believe agencies have a role to play in advancing sustainability with their clients, only 15% are comfortable with asking a client about their sustainability position. Why is there such a hesitancy?

For many, a need to define the agency’s own position and strategy was highlighted as necessary before taking up the conversation with a client or prospect. A lack of perceived expertise and knowledge on sustainability, as well as a fear of the call descending into an argument or political discussion were also frequently mentioned.

But there are practical actions being taken today to start from…

From our study it appears many agencies are finding the way forward difficult to see and navigate. But although business continuity is taking the majority share of bandwidth, there are initiatives and actions being taken across the agency landscape. These can offer learnings and opportunities for agencies that want to pull up their sleeves and start taking practical, tangible actions internally.

Over 40% of respondents stated they are proactively reducing energy consumption in the office day to day – keeping the air-con off and turning off devices when not in use. The same percentage have removed all single use plastics entirely from their office kitchen and dining areas and have established volunteer days and programmes where employees can support beach or river-clean ups, or are getting involved in climate / environmental learning opportunities.

However, a smaller percentage of respondents are taking on some additional big and small ticket items – installing solar panels for office use and electric vehicle charging, covering daily commuting costs for employees that use public transport, implementing mandatory ‘sustainability days’ be it cycle-to-work, no meat or plastic days, improving website energy efficiency or moving agency websites to less carbon intensive web hosts. With Website Carbon estimating that a website with only 100,000 monthly visits generates over 2 tons of CO2 annually, the design and hosting of your website can offer a quick win to reduce emissions from your business.

On the supplier and client relationship front, actions are being taken, albeit on a small scale. Initiatives include requesting virtual pitches to remove unnecessary travel (45%), no print or physical collateral for pitch presentations (52%), or declining briefs from companies due to their sustainability or industry position (26%). A small number of agencies are also making sustainability a standard area of a client or prospect discussion, as well as recommending sustainable solutions as part of final project deliverables.

What comes next?

Every agency seems to be on its own path – figuring out where the quick wins are for their specific business and what needs greater time, resource and investment.

But this is where the opportunity is – to learn from agencies that are ambitious in their goals and implementing new policies and taking actions in myriad different ways. Agency leaders must get better at asking their peers what’s working and what’s not, sharing knowledge and best practices that can drive real action now.

Leadership also needs to communicate far more. It’s time to get past any embarrassment of perhaps not having sorted this out already and avoiding the conversation, but actually being open with employees and saying “This is important to us. What can we do to get moving and how can you help us on that journey?”. You can guarantee there are employees in your organisations that are passionate about these issues and would be thrilled to take up the call if only they were invited to do so.

There will always be client deadlines to meet and revenue targets to hit – that is one of the constants of the agency world. But that is where the bandwidth and resource limitations for developing a sustainability strategy must be looked at in a different way. By setting up a core team of sustainability champions from across your business and approaching the challenge with a project mind-set – a budget, resource allocation, goals and deadlines – development progresses swiftly and becomes an integral part of agency operations.

At Eat Creative, we are only starting our journey – figuring out where the quick wins are and what we need to focus on in the coming year that makes a tangible, tactical difference to reducing our impact on the environment and taking real climate-positive action. We are keen to share what’s working and what’s not and learn from our peers to see what we can tackle together. Do get in touch!

P.S. If you’re interested in getting a better view on agencies around the world working with fossil fuel firms, do check out Clean Creative’s F-List here.