Vodafone Reduces Its Advertising and Media Carbon Footprint by a Third

Vodafone has reduced the carbon footprint of its media and advertising activities by more than a third in a year across thirteen markets in total after benchmarking its media-related greenhouse gas (‘GHG') emissions and introducing global guidelines to mitigate them.

Vodafone’s award-winning Sustainable Media Programme was established in October 2022 to deliver emission reductions across Vodafone’s global media and advertising activities. It supports Vodafone’s ambition of halving greenhouse gas emissions in its value chain by 2030 and achieving net zero by 2040.

In partnership with marketing and ad agency Dentsu and carbon management software provider Cozero, Vodafone measured the climate impact of its digital and traditional media activities across 13 channels in 13 markets during 2023. Media spend was analysed from cinema and TV, magazines, and newspapers, to billboards and digital channels including social, video and search.  Vodafone was able to quantify around 85% of its overall media-related activities to establish a GHG emissions baseline for those activities for calendar year 2023 of 16,958 tCO2e, the equivalent of around 3,800 round trip flights between London and Cape Town.

Vodafone was able to reduce the carbon impact of its media and advertising from 7,311.56 tCO2e in Q3 FY23 to 4,855.27 tCO2e in Q3 FY24, a 34% decrease of 2,456 tCO2e.

Anne Stilling, Vodafone group director of brand and media said, “Vodafone has ambitious targets to achieve net zero across its entire value chain by 2040.  Our industry-leading Sustainable Media Programme will play a key role in mitigating our Scope 3 emissions through ongoing benchmarking and improving the carbon impact of our advertising and media activities.

“By partnering with organisations like the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) to share our experience, Vodafone can also help the wider advertising industry develop and implement consistent standards to measure and reduce media carbon footprints.”

The analysis also looked at the emissions generated by an individual advertising ‘impact’ - the opportunity for an ad impression to be seen or heard by a person across a range of channels.

This found that cinema and outdoor ‘Digital Out Of Home’ were the most energy intensive channels overall when considering their emissions per unit of impact.  Although traditional TV emits the most emissions overall for Vodafone, it is one of the most efficient channels in terms of emissions per unit of impact.

Vodafone’s Sustainable Media Guidelines

Vodafone used the insights gained from the analysis of its advertising and media carbon footprint to evolve its sustainable media guidelines, promoting actions that will lead to further emission reduction.  Recommendations in Vodafone’s current guidelines include:

• Onscreen – Using shorter videos to cut playback energy, screening ads only during full-house attendance, targeting specific audience segments.
• Out of Home – Prioritising suppliers committed to sustainability, reducing file sizes for dynamic display, and zoning display to reach high propensity audiences.
• Print – Assessing the greenhouse gas emissions of paper and printing, prioritising suppliers using clean energy to power their operations, and implementing targeted audience strategies.
• Online – Optimising video files, efficient targeting, ad waste reduction, streaming over downloading, and planning for attention and viewability.
• Audio Visual – utilising shorter videos, prioritising ad delivery on Wi-Fi networks, and working closely with broadcasters to refine advertisement scheduling.

Vodafone has introduced a carbon measurement dashboard that empowers Vodafone’s markets to monitor the ongoing climate impact of their media planning and buying decisions. Vodafone also encourages its vendors and partners to identify and report all their emission-generating activities.

Protecting the Planet

Vodafone seeks to protect the planet and enable our customers to do the same. We strive to achieve net zero in our own operations and value chain, contribute to the circular economy and empower our customers to reduce their environmental footprint.

In May 2024, Vodafone published its first Climate Transition Plan, setting out the actions that Vodafone will take over FY 2025–27 to drive progress towards net zero.

Read more about how Vodafone is tackling greenhouse gas emissions, enabling the green transition and promoting circularity here: Protecting the planet (vodafone.com).