Marketing & Communications

Free Course Aims to Train Advertisers to Combat Climate Change

Good-Loop’s Good-Media Academy outlines how the ad industry impacts climate change and what advertisers can do to mitigate it.

Published 7 months ago | About a 4 minute read

Image: Paul Steuber

Today, Good-Loop, an ethical ad agency that “exists to make advertising a positive force in the world,” launched its Good-Media Academy — a free course designed to teach agency teams the principles that make up “Good-Media,” and educate participants about the technologies available to mitigate the environmental impact of their campaigns.

“Our research, Counting Carbon: How marketers are tackling adland’s climate crisis, shows that over 66 percent of brand marketers feel there is not sufficient education and training on sustainable media,” says CEO and co-founder Amy Williams. This green-skills gap is one of the biggest barriers to action against climate change in the ad sector; many marketers want to address this but are unsure how. With this free course, we want to ensure that everyone in our industry has the skills and knowledge needed to make more sustainable choices and turn advertising into the force for good it has the potential to be.”

Williams — who told Sustainable Brands® (SB) in a recent interview that her previous experience in advertising was the “antithesis of sustainability” — says the idea for Good-Loop, the first B Corp-certified ad-tech company, was born out of a frustration with ad-blocking (“the biggest boycott in human history”); and she felt driven to create a way to “use this industry to do good and turn the tanker in the right direction.” Since its launch in 2016, the agency has grown to become a resource for companies that want to combine consumer ad engagement with support of social and environmental causes.

Good-Loop also makes sure brand ads are as sustainable as possible (by compressing font files or reducing animation libraries, for example, so they use as little energy as possible) before distributing them across the web and social platforms; and offers a service to measure the carbon impact of digital campaigns — until recently, a largely overlooked contributor to a brand’s footprint. And while companies such as Mars have begun working to both reduce the impact of their advertising and increase awareness around the topic, the industry tanker continues to turn very slowly.

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To help move things along, Good-Loop’s new course is divided into three different modules: The first delves into climate change and how it relates to the media industry. The second module focuses on breaking down the carbon jargon that surrounds sustainability conversations in the ad industry and what this means for advertisers’ climate claims. The final installment focuses on decarbonization, and outlines some practical steps participants can take to identify and address the environmental cost of their campaigns.

The course is hosted by Good-Loop co-founder and CEO Amy Williams; Impact Manager Hannah Williams; and Claire Gleeson-Landry, Head of Sustainable Media. They are joined by a host of ad industry experts, with guest speakers including:

Thomas Kolster — Mr. Goodvertising
Kathryn Lundstrom – Sustainability Editor at AdWeek
Hannah Cox — Director at the Better Business Network
Rachel Schnorr — Memberships Director at Ad Net Zero US
Jonathan Wise — co-founder of Purpose Disruptors

“The advertising industry is desperately lacking knowledge about sustainability — and it’s getting worse as artificial intelligence is getting all the limelight,” Kolster told SB. “It’s applaudable that Good-Loop wants to invest and support the industry’s learning journey; and I can only hope industry bodies, brands and bigger media players will get inspired to help turn our industry from part of the problem into part of the solution.”

Good-Media is a category founded by Good-Loop, which has pioneered it with its suite of products. The goal is to fund quality journalism on quality websites, and reduce carbon emissions while gaining the attention of consumers, building trust and increasing brand recall.

To learn more about the course and to register, visit https://good-loop.com/good-media-academy.