the greening of agencies

Influx Insights — 2007-09-14T09:29:55Z

Back in July, I wrote about the green initiative that French communication group Havas was launching. My prediction was that other agencies would leap on board to try and seize some kind of competitive advantage.

The first to bite in the US, interestingly, is Grey, who announced a big initiative a couple of days back.

What’s surprising about Grey’s move is the attempt to try and become the agency world’s Pied Piper of the green cause by inviting other agencies to work and learn together through Grey.

While it’s good to see Grey leading the green charge, I doubt others will be happy for Grey to take credit for helping them out.

I now expect the green statements to come flying out of most shops before the holidays and for RFPs to ask prospective agencies about their green policies.

Via Adland

Posted by Ed Cotton

havas goes green, others will follow

Influx Insights — 2007-07-28T10:33:47Z

Last week, the French communication giant Havas announced it plans to make itself into a greener company by outlining a set of initiatives to reduce its carbon footprint.

The goal is to reduce company-wide C02 by 20% by 2009.

The bulk of the initiative is based on buying carbon offsets, but it also includes employee training and reductions backs on energy, paper and business travel.

Expect every global agency network to announce a similar initiaitve in the coming weeks.

The energy produced creating and running ads in considerable.

So look out for green production companies, TV spots created using wind power (BBDO's ad for GE's wind power initiatives should be produced using wind power?), more glossy magazines printed on recycled paper, solar powered radio stations and greener search engines.

Obviously, product designers will have the opportunity to make the most difference and recently frog design threw down the gauntlet with a plan for a Kyoto style treaty that asks for the following actions.

Collectively:

Helping craft a larger social equity protocol for the design community

Publicly ratifying that agreement, and committing to its compliance

Contributing to the communal knowledge base for sustainable design

Advancing the intellectual understanding of environmental issues from a design perspective

Individually:

Offering green analysis to clients, or partnering with others to conduct this analysis

Providing material alternatives for sustainable product development

Investigating manufacturing processes and rewarding green innovation

Minimizing environmental impact from prototyping or model-making activity

Publicly reporting the carbon footprint of our firms

Becoming educated about the environmental impact of our work

It's unlikely that we will see the global communication networks coming together to create such initiaitve, instead we expect agencies to try and use this as a source of competitive advantage.

However, media organizations might be the ones who start working together to issue standards and plans to tackle the climate change issue.

Posted by Ed Cotton

Influx Insights Tag Feed: havas

the greening of agencies

havas goes green, others will follow