Marketing Declares

Climate emergency

As people, parents, children, colleagues, and citizens, we love all life that inhabits planet Earth. All of that life, including our own, depends on a calm climate and thriving biodiversity.

The science confirms that we are now in a twin crisis of climate collapse and biodiversity loss; the breakdown has begun and the impact is being felt across the globe. One in two people – half of the whole planet’s population – live in the danger zone of major climate impact.

The viability of humans living on this planet rests on us taking action within this seven-year window – that’s the loudest ticking clock in human history. It’s an urgent deadline, and we need action. 


Marketing Declares is a growing group of marketing leaders, brand owners, (digital) agencies and institutions here to declare a climate and ecological emergency. Led by Flourish and instigated by the BIMA Sustainability Council, we are calling on the marketing industry to take collective action. We can innovate and collaborate like never before to limit harm, create change, and rejuvenate our planet, for the sake of our families and our future generations.

The role of marketing

Advertising is responsible for an average 28% uptick in the carbon footprint of the average consumer for its part in driving non-sustainable consumption*.

A typical online ad campaign emits 5.4 tonnes of carbon dioxide – almost half what an average UK consumer produces in a year. And that’s just the ads we actually see**.

Technology and digital is on track to create as much carbon as the aviation industry.*

Global marketing teams typically waste 70% of the marketing assets they create.**

Marketers have great power and great responsibility. We are uniquely positioned to make a difference. Climate change is both the greatest risk and the greatest opportunity of our time, as Mark Carney has said. And, according to Sir David Attenborough, saving our planet is a communications challenge. Let's explore how you can activate your personal power across your role for the benefit of our collective future.

Why declare

As part of the global climate emergency declaration movement, Marketing Declares means galvanising our collective care for the planet towards positive impactful action. It means using the influence, energy and tools of our industry to reimagine, rebuild and heal our planet.

Together with our clients, partners and colleagues across the marketing industry and supply chain, we are daring to reimagine the way we create every campaign, product, service, and solution we put out into the world.

The declarer’s mindset

What does it take to Declare? It means a mindset shift to move from caring and worrying to taking responsibility and action. It means accepting that we are in a climate and biodiversity emergency, and we only have until 2030 to make a meaningful impact.
We ask you, the Declarer, to spend time and thought on how these actions can be taken in your company.

Lead the future

Businesses are only as sustainable as the products and services they offer. Leaders must take up the most important challenge of their careers – taking care to understand the climate crisis and taking action to make a difference.

Sustainability is the story

Raise it up. Decarbonisation means species survival – it must be at the forefront of every business strategy and annual report, not a CSR initiative.

Great power, greater responsibility

Every brand has a platform to communicate to millions and should use it as a force for good.

Mean it

No one can talk about the climate emergency authentically while not actively responding to it.

When you know better, do better

Brands can’t bury old stories under new initiatives or amplify the good things to hide the bad. They need to accelerate positive progress. 

Create less but better

All content creation pollutes – so be wise with energy, resources, megabytes of storage, kw\h of power.

Stories start at home

How brands talk about their own organisations can inspire internal revolutions to attract and motivate employees.

Measure what matters

As agencies, we’re obsessed with measurement. Let’s measure, rapidly decarbonise, and encourage our clients to do the same.

Inertia is the enemy

Brands cannot hold back for fear of not getting it right. Connect to the collective action around you – you have more power than you think.

All welcome

Marketing Declares is free.

‘Marketing’ to us means brands, creative, advertising, digital, communications, and all involved in communicating products and services.

Marketing Declares offers support to all its signatories through shared resources, best practice and insights – all found in the Toolkit.

Our signatories use the clarity of the Acts of Emergency as a way to start meaningful conversations and actions in collaboration with colleagues, collaborators and clients.

We welcome declarations from companies with offices in the UK with at least one full-time employee, and from practising freelancers who are registered as self-employed in the UK. All signatories will be celebrated on this site.

As a collective voice, we will liaise with other industry organisations and networks, constructively engaging with government, clients and media to build the movement of impact.

Toolkit

Use marketing for good. Inspire clients to change the brief and change audience behaviour. Decarbonise to create real reductions, offset as a last resort.

Within agency operations:

Promise to never promote fossil fuels

The best step you can take. Sign up to the Clean Creatives movement of advertisers, PR professionals, and their clients cutting ties with fossil fuels.

FutureLearn

A free course from BIMA and MSQ on how to measure, reduce and offset your company’s carbon footprint.

B Corp

Join the global network of businesses leading system change for an inclusive, equitable, and regenerative economy.

Ecovadis

Manage your network’s corporate social responsibility and share your sustainability performance.

Octopus EV

Champion sustainable travel with an all-inclusive electric vehicle plan or benefit scheme.

Ecologi Zero

Track real-time carbon footprint calculations using business data and expenditure – free and easy to use.

Million Tree Pledge

Join the pledge already responsible for the planting of over 10 million trees for climate action.

Utilities & investments

An array of resources including pensions, office EV schemes, company wind farms investments, low-carbon employee travel, and cycle schemes

ECOLOGI

A fantastic place to start your tree planting, offsetting and carbon removal journey (as a last resort after actual decarbonisation).

Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership

Let your teams complete the CISL Marketing, Media & Creative course. It's great!

In applied client work:

#ChangeTheBrief

Act and learn in partnership with a vast network of agencies directly addressing climate change across all available channels.

Sustainable Marketing Compass

Align your marketing with global sustainability goals and embed them at the core of operations.

Ad Net Zero #5

Harness Advertising’s power to reduce emissions from agency operations, production, and media planning & buying, and harness advertising's power to support behaviour change.

Ad Green

Calculators and training to empower the advertising industry to reduce carbon emissions resulting from production

Fifty-five

Learn from the first public study of advertising channel carbon emissions, including a calculation model and best practices for rapid reduction.

Conscious Advertising Network

Join the coalition of advertisers, agencies and tech providers acting against harmful, exclusionary and misleading content.

ASA

Get to know the ASA’s codes for responsible sustainability advertising and environmental claims.

Ad Net Zero #3

Action 3 – adopt the IPA Media Futures Group’s Climate Charter to reduce Emissions from media planning & buying.

BIMA Web Standards

Find out what we’re doing to promote a diverse, inclusive, and responsible digital community in the UK.

The Green Pages by BIMA

Get carbon-savvy with this crowd-curated portal of essential resources.

As Brands:

The Net Positive Manifesto

Learn from sustainable business pioneers Paul Polman and Andrew Winston about the economic opportunity of giving more to the world.

#ChangeTheBrief

Act and learn in partnership with a vast network of agencies directly addressing climate change across all available channels.

Sustainable Marketing Compass

Avoid greenwashing pitfalls and increase brand contribution and reputation. 

B Corp

Be seen and admired for having the highest standards for sustainable, equitable and regenerative business practice.

Octopus EV

Walk the walk of a sustainable lifestyle with an all-inclusive electric vehicle plan or benefit scheme.

Ecologi Zero

Track and report real-time carbon footprint calculations using business data and expenditure – free and easy to use.

Million Tree Pledge

Take the pledge already responsible for the planting of over 10 million trees for climate action.

As individual marketers:

Ecologi

Explore numerous different initiatives and challenge yourself to take the right steps towards climate action.

Climate Action Against Disinformation

Join the coalition against misleading information that dilutes productive conversations on the climate.

Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL)

Let your teams complete the University of Cambridge Marketing, Media & Creative course

Sign Now

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