Ben Sharpe, Head of Integrated Production at adam&eveDDB, shares how close collaboration with the brand enabled them to reduce their production emissions through conscious decision making, and use of the AdGreen carbon calculator. If you are looking to reduce your impact, check out the carbon calculator to help you measure, and the AdGreen resources to help you reduce!

Sustainability is critical to Quorn, and at the heart of their business operations strategy, so it is important that the agency’s production approach acts as an extension of their overall sustainability strategy. To achieve this, outside of any specific production, account management and production leads at the agency worked with leadership at Quorn to review their sustainability policies and create a production strategy, which includes actionable targets and stretch goals for individual productions.

At the start of the production process for this campaign, we shared our intentions with our production partners to ensure everyone entered the bidding phase with a carbon efficient mindset. Our chosen partner, MindsEye, factored sustainability into their budgeting process, and engaged in meaningful conversations about how various production approaches effect the budget and the carbon footprint.

The AdGreen Carbon Calculator was incredibly helpful as we worked through this production. We went in knowing that travel and energy sources are two of the main carbon drivers, but the calculator helped us understand how each individual aspect of the production contributes to the overall carbon footprint. With this clear breakdown we were able to minimise emissions with decisive actions on all fronts for the shoot – from using a real location which didn’t require any set build, to vegan catering.

The decision to hire a biodiesel generator came after learning about the carbon impact of traditional diesel generators, which are still more widely available. While upgrading to a lower carbon energy source was more expensive, this was deemed a worthy investment by Quorn and was a decision which dramatically lowered the emissions generated by our shoot.

AdGreen’s training and resources are valuable tools which allow everyone to properly engage in the process of minimising the carbon impact of production. Our recommendation is to set intentions with your clients prior to production, consider carbon drivers when reviewing creative work, engage with like-minded production partners, start early when measuring, and collaborate with your brand clients and production partners to find solutions throughout the process.

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