As calls for brands to embrace sustainability in their operations grow, the advertising industry has stepped up its resolve with players and agencies embracing initiatives that are decarbonizing the sector and using marketing’s power to accelerate consumers’ switch to more sustainable products and services.

These specific interventions include curtailing emissions from business operations, advertising production, media planning and buying, and awards and events, as well as utilizing advertising’s power to support consumer behavior change.

IAB Europe, the European-level industry association for the digital marketing and advertising ecosystem, has announced the release of a new European IAB Common Commitment Agreement on Sustainability signed by 20 National IABs and Federations across Europe.

The Commitment demonstrates the need and wants from National Federations for a collaborative and consistent approach to the measurement methodology of carbon emissions. This includes the regulatory and policy taxonomy, and the mapping and standardisation of best practices for the delivery of ads across the digital supply chain.

LoopMe, a technology company that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to improve brand advertising performance, has announced that it has reached net zero for Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3 emissions, thereby becoming a carbon neutral advertising partner.

At the same time, global programmatic media partner MiQ has announced a new partnership with groundbreaking streaming tech provider, SeenThis to advance sustainability in digital advertising.

At the same time, Volta Inc. an electric vehicle (EV) charging and media company, has announced it will join Ad Net Zero as a founding partner for the organization’s new USA chapter.

As the only digital out-of-home (DOOH) media network to become a member, Volta’s support demonstrates the company’s continued role in decarbonizing media at a time when the need for advertising leaders to curb emissions while driving sales has never been more pronounced.

This coming at a time when the World Federation of Advertisers launched the Sustainable Marketing 2030 report to close the gap between intent and action. The report identifies a greater ambition to transform with 90% of marketers agreeing that sustainability agendas must be more ambitious and 94% saying marketers need to act more bravely and experiment to drive transformative change.

A report by Unilever and a cohort of eco-conscious influencers and behavioural scientists showed that influencers have th esingle biggest impact on people’s green choices today. True for 78% of people, it is far ahead of TV documentaries (48%), news articles (37%) and even government campaigns (just 20%). In fact, 83% agree that TikTok and Instagram are helpful places to seek out advice on how to be greener at home, validating the importance of social media as a valuable tool in helping to make sustainable living commonplace. This was even higher (86%) for younger participants (18-34), highlighting the greater importance that future generations are placing on living sustainably.

In the partnerships front, MGID, the global advertising platform, has announced a partnership with Playmaker, the digital sports media company that delivers authentic content experiences through its portfolio of sports media brands.

The partnership will see the direct integration of MGID’s native ads across Playmaker’s web properties to maximize user experience and engagement and increase traffic and monetization.

Channel 4 and Lloyds Bank have launched Black in Business – a new initiative to help boost up to five Black owned businesses with TV advertising airtime worth £100,000.

In addition to receiving £100,000 worth of airtime, each of the five business owners will also have a creative bespoke TV advert made for them and six months of tailored marketing and business support from Channel 4, Lloyds Bank and social enterprise, DOES.

Xsolla, a global video game commerce company, has announced that they are launching a partnership with YouAppi, the mobile marketing platform for global brands wanting to grow their business.

The collaboration aims to address the needs of the gaming market by providing retargeting campaigns that help mobile game developers and publishers drive more players to a web shop and grow revenue from existing players.

NVIDIA and WPP have announced they are developing a content engine that harnesses NVIDIA Omniverse™ and AI to enable creative teams to produce high-quality commercial content faster, more efficiently and at scale while staying fully aligned with a client’s brand.

Elsewhere, L'Oréal (brand value up 7% to US$12 billion) reigns supreme as the overall winner in the Brand Finance Cosmetics 50 ranking.

As one of the world’s most popular and well-known cosmetics brands, L’Oréal operates in over 150 countries and has a global portfolio of over 30 brands. In its analysis, Brand Finance has determined that the key measures of familiarity and consideration towards L’Oréal have increased.

And finally, Belgium has unveiled its new international branding campaign titled “Embracing Openness”. Primarily targeted at economic decision makers and the broader research community, the initiative has been launched by the FPS Chancellery of the Prime Minister to strengthen Belgium’s openness for innovation, as supported by partnerships and diversity. The campaign will run until April 2026.

Bob Koigi is an editor at Marketing Report EU

www.marketingreport.eu