According to the calculations of TrinityP3, marketing communication globally is responsible for over 500 million tonnes of CO2 emmissions per year and is forecast to grow by over five percent every year after that… a hell of a lot more than your average primary school newsletter circulation.

“To get this into some perspective, this is the equivalent amount of CO2 emmissions generated in the same period by over 380,000,000 average fuel-efficient cars – this is more than half the total number of cars on the road today!” says business director Christopher Sewell.

“This is made up of $450 billion in media spend which equals approximately 162 million tonnes CO2 emmissions a year,” continued Sewell, “merely a part of the total marketing spend and therefore only a percentage of the carbon being generated by the marketing communication industry.”

Sewell believes that companies must question their media channel choices and that carbon should be used as another measure when advertisers plan their media.

The ultimate aim of the companys calculations is to reduce the advertisers’ emissions and also send a message to the media channels and marketing suppliers to improve their footprint.

“Just shifting online is not the simple answer,” says Sewell, “the internet, although cost effective… has a big carbon footprint when not used in a targeted manner. That needs to be understood before leaping to the online solution.”

TrintyP3 assures marketers that if they calculate their total
emissions by adding to the media emissions, their commercial print,
direct marketing, design and production related activities; then they
will be able to see the size of their global marketing communication
carbon footprint.