GroupM will open up its carbon calculation methodology to industry as it bids to set the standard in enabling decarbonisation of advertising supply chains.

While rival holdcos, consultancies and independents are racing to build carbon calculators – which will be ultimately used to allocate media dollars – the WPP-owned firm fears that competing frameworks and standards will end up confusing marketers and consumers, ultimately damaging credibility.

Mindshare Global Chief Transformation Officer, Ollie Joyce last month described the scramble for carbon calculators as “an arms race”.

“If you keep getting different numbers that you can't rely on, then you're not going to be able to quantify reductions, and you're not going to be able to make informed judgments to enable you to move investment to lower carbon options,” he told a Cannes fringe event.

GroupM boss Christian Juhl reiterated that stance in launching the framework: “Having different standards across companies, platforms, and markets is delaying meaningful action,” said Juhl.

“By sharing this global framework, we hope to begin aligning our industry behind a consistent set of standards that will create clear goals and incentives for rapidly decarbonising the media supply chain.” Details of the program were launched overnight in GroupM's report Calculating a Cleaner Future: A Unified Methodology for Accelerated Media Decarbonisation.  

WPP has a direct incentive to ensure the broader media supply chain – including publishers – takes rapid action to reduce carbon emissions. The holdco has committed to decarbonising its own operations by 2025 and its indirect emissions, classed as ‘scope 3’ emissions, by 2030. For advertising, scope 3 includes the emissions generated by audiences viewing their ads across all screens.

The vast majority of WPP’s carbon footprint, more than 98 per cent, according to GroupM Global Chief Innovation Officer Krystal Olivieri is classed as scope 3. “Of that 98 per cent, 55 per cent is media buying. It is the single biggest carbon output of WPP,” she said last month in Cannes.

While many organisations are turning to carbon offsetting – buying carbon credits that help fund renewable energy development or tree planting, for example – Olivieri suggested offsetting is a sticking plaster and “an accounting game”.

“Estimating and offsetting is only the first step … It's made some progress. But we really need to get from offset to reduction. There's a massive difference. Offset doesn't really help the environment, it just stops incremental bleeding,” she said. “We have to get to reduction. We have to push partners for net zero emissions.”