One Australian marketer who is keenly aware of environmental impact says media outlets might be surprised by the size of their carbon footprint.

Christopher Sewell, chief executive at The Gaia Partnership (a green auditing business affiliated with pitch consultants Trinity P3), reckons that globally, media firms release 240 billion tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere each year (based on research from Veronis Suhler Stevenson in the US).

Sewell (pictured below) estimates that marketing communications were responsible for more than 500 million tonnes of CO2 emissions last year, an output he says will grow by five per cent annually.

He told Australian trade publication, B&T: “For some perspective, this is equivalent to the amount produced by more than 380 million cars in a year.”

The Gaia Partnership has developed a means of measuring carbon emissions created by marketing activity in the media: The CO2counter. The methodology is complex, taking into account ad effectiveness, how often ads are run and any energy initiatives undertaken by the media companies themselves. But a rule of thumb shows newspapers and magazines are the biggest culprits when it comes to size of carbon footprint – followed surprisingly by the Internet, then outdoor, television, newspapers, cinema and radio.

Sewell says the issue is compounded by ‘corporate greenspeak’, and adds: “A lot of media companies claim carbon neutrality, but there’s a lot of cynicism coming out of Europe about that at the moment. There’s nothing wrong with some form of offset, but the big challenge for everybody is how do you measure and reduce your carbon emissions?”

He says the best way to reduce the environmental footprint of the media industry is widespread disclosure, so decision-makers at all levels can objectively compare which media has the least impact on the environment.

Christopher Sewell.