GroupM reaffirms commitment to decarbonisation

GroupM and WPP have reaffimed their commitment to decarbonisation. WPP has underscored the group’s commitment to reach net-zero across its direct operations (Scopes 1 and 2) by 2025 and its value chain (Scope 3) by 2030. This commitment includes the media GroupM buys on behalf of its clients, which collectively account for more than 50% of WPP’s total emissions. These goals are underpinned by carbon reduction targets that are in line with the Paris Climate Agreement and verified by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi).

“Our commitment is unique to our industry in that we are the only marketing communications company to include the emissions from media placement in our emissions reduction target. Currently, media accounts for more than half of our total emissions,” states a report on WPP website.

WPP is working to develop the technology and standards that can be used to measure and reduce emissions from advertising globally. As part of that effort, GroupM commissioned research from independent specialists in carbon measurement to help create a robust methodology for accurately measuring emissions across the media supply chain to allow targeted interventions to reduce emissions from media placement. Once created, the lifecycle assessment methodologies of media channels would allow a new carbon calculator to be built, which could serve anyone in the industry willing to set absolute emissions reduction targets and build in vendor-level data where available.