Ad Net Zero Will Take Over GARM’s Sustainable Media Work

Ad Net Zero, a global initiative to curb the advertising industry’s climate impact, will take over sole ownership of an ongoing effort to standardize media decarbonization.

The Global Media Sustainability Framework was previously a joint effort between ANZ and the World Federation of Advertisers’ Global Alliance for Responsible Media (or GARM), a nonprofit that was disbanded last week after it was targeted in an anti-trust lawsuit from X.

ANZ leadership said the change isn’t likely to slow down efforts to build out the framework. Working groups will continue to meet after a planned summer break.

“We do need to regroup. We do need to put in place a slightly different personnel,” Anthony Falco, global director of ANZ, said. “There’ll be a slight pause while we’re figuring that out, but it won’t even be a momentary one, and the work will continue with the same priorities that we had previously.”

GARM and Ad Net Zero released the first part of the Global Media Sustainability Framework in June at the Cannes Lions Festival, including methodologies for measuring carbon emissions from digital, TV, and out-of-home advertising.

Working groups are also establishing standardized measurements for print, cinema, and audio, which will be released in the coming months as planned, said Falco.

A delicate power balance

The industry has been working toward standards for measuring the carbon emissions from digital media for over two years, and the path to this summer’s framework wasn’t exactly smooth.

Early efforts toward standardizing measurement were stalled by agencies that had invested heavily in carbon calculators and methodologies.

Brands, under pressure from looming emissions reporting requirements like the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, were able to push for faster progress through the WFA’s participation in the process.

There’s some risk that the WFA’s lack of participation moving forward could return conversations to a gridlock of conflicting interests from advertising holding companies. Falco told ADWEEK that ANZ’s members are “way past that.”

“At the beginning, we had this group of companies, and the extended industry hadn’t worked together in this way possibly ever before,” Falco said. “Those advertisers helped to focus the minds and bring that collaboration if it was needed.”

While ANZ has broad support from major advertisers and the top six ad agency holding companies, climate activists have targeted the group in the past for failing to demand that its agency supporters drop their fossil fuel clients.

Frank Maguire, vp of insights, strategy, and sustainability at Sharethrough, called the Global Media Sustainability Framework the “most significant set of sustainability guidelines the industry has seen to date.” He added that ANZ is “well-equipped to progress those standards and will continue to lead the charge in driving sustainable practices forward.”

Regulations are coming

While regulatory pressures were beginning to materialize at the beginning of the industry’s efforts toward standardizing media emissions measurement, those pressures are much more tangible now.

Large companies in the EU have to begin reporting carbon emissions, including those from media, as soon as next year, noted Eric Shih, chief operating officer at carbon intelligence platform Cedara. Shih has also been part of the working groups related to standardizing media measurement.

“[CSRD deadlines are] going to continue to apply pressure from that perspective, at a brand and company level,” Shih said.

GARM’s sustainability work becoming collateral damage of a politically charged brand safety fight is something that participants in the process desperately want to avoid.

“I’m saddened by this because we were making a ton of progress,” said Brian O’Kelley, co-founder and CEO of sustainable adtech company Scope3, who’s been part of the working groups related to the media sustainability framework.

“I would hate to have this be a knock-on effect of some other political bullshit,” he continued. “That, in the moment of greatest climate crisis in the history of the world, some flame war on Twitter ruined our chances to decarbonize the digital technology ecosystem. We can’t let that happen. We’re not going to let that happen.”