The Conscious Advertising Network launches its Climate and Sustainability manifesto alongside experts from Friends of the Earth, Havas Media Group, SSE, Ipsos, and Virgin Media O2

The Conscious Advertising Network (CAN) is launching a new manifesto on ‘Climate and Sustainability’, adding to the already 6 existing manifestos aimed to inspire conscious advertising choices. The manifesto was created together with a team of climate and industry professionals including Friends of the Earth, Havas Media Group, SSE, Ipsos, and Virgin Media O2. It is essential that Climate and Sustainability is at the core of business practice in advertising with the manifesto, which can be viewed HERE, a key guide on how to achieve this.

The climate crisis is the defining challenge of humanity, and misinformation plays a huge part in holding back progress. The recent IPCC report states clearly “Any further delay in concerted global action will miss a brief and rapidly closing window to secure a liveable future.” In light of this report CAN believes that advertisers play a key role; from briefing to production to the content organisations create, at every step of the way climate and sustainability commitments must be ingrained. The new manifesto embodies the belief that the content people consume and the processes by which they are created, should be sustainable and responsibly considered, avoiding either creating or funding climate misinformation and disinformation.

It is imperative that climate and sustainability practices are incorporated in the media in order to reach our goals under the Paris Climate Agreement and the advertising industry plays a major role in ensuring progress. The manifesto outlines clear steps and resources for advertisers to consider throughout the working process with many tools and groups who can assist in these areas referenced in the document. Besides a focus on the materials advertisers are creating and putting out, the manifesto also asks organisations to consider what type of content they are funding. It is essential that advertisers are not funding climate disinformation, something which can sometimes inadvertently be the case.

The Climate and Sustainability manifesto will sit alongside CAN’s six existing manifestos all developed with the aim to support advertisers in maintaining ethical business practices. They are: Hate Speech; Dis/Misinformation; Diversity and Inclusion; Children’s Wellbeing; Informed Consent, and Advertising Fraud.

Harriet Kingaby and Jake Dubbins, co-founder’s of CAN say: “Climate change is the biggest challenge of our generation and it’s important that advertisers are doing everything they can to ensure we meet our goals under the Paris Climate Agreement and keep warming to under 1.5 degrees. That means considering the impact of everything we do and make, including what our media spend funds and the norms that we project on screen. Advertising

can have a huge role to play in changing hearts and minds about climate, defunding the disinformation economy, and decarbonising our operations, but we must act now.”

SSE commented on the manifesto: “SSE is proud to have worked on the development of this new manifesto initiative led by CAN. It’s critical that brands and advertisers take responsibility to support this incredibly important issue and ultimately help accelerate the journey to Net Zero.”

About the Conscious Advertising Network

The Conscious Advertising Network (CAN) is a voluntary coalition that ensures industry ethics catches up with the technology of modern advertising. At CAN, our influence comes from collaboration with our 150+ members, including civil society organisations like Unite, Antisemitism Policy Trust and the National Union of Students, as well as brands such as GSK, O2 and SSE. Using the strength of this coalition, we’re able to make the moral and commercial case to drive changes within the industry and help shift ad spend away from online harms. Our manifestos cover seven main areas; hate speech, misinformation, diversity and inclusion, children’s wellbeing, informed consent, advertising fraud, and Climate & Sustainability.