AdGreen Carbon Calculator Methodology
Here are some highlights from AdGreen’s methodology, and below that, some FAQs. If your question isn’t answered or you’d like more detailed information, please email methodology@weareadgreen.org.
Why use it?
Given the reporting requirements on larger stakeholders in the sector, the upgraded AdGreen carbon calculator’s methodology is aligned with the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol Product Life Cycle Accounting and Reporting Standard, and its 5 key principles: relevance, completeness, consistency, transparency and accuracy. This is to give stakeholders the confidence that resulting emissions data from information entered about their productions is as complete as possible, reflecting the scope of advertising production services, and as accurate as possible, given the challenges the sector has in gathering it.
Who is it for?
The tool is designed to capture emissions resulting from advertising production activities. It’s available to holding companies (e.g., a parent of any of the following), brands, production consultancies, advertising agencies, and production companies (which could reasonably be selected by Companies who consider themselves to be a post-production company, service production company etc).
Any organisation type can create a project and invite other companies to join it. Organisations working on a project together add the relevant activities, based on what their allocated budget covers.
More information about who can do what is in schedule 2 of the terms and conditions.
How does it work?
Although at present many projects might result in various formats of output: traditional formats such as TV or radio content, as well as influencer content, ‘always on’ assets for social, experiential and event material; the consensus was that there were only two questions required to determine which of 4 types of advertising production service a project falls into: 1) Whether it will incorporate existing material, 2) Whether a shoot is required
This results in the following:
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Working with activities
When creating a project, users are asked both if a shoot took place, and if existing material was incorporated, meaning the project can be aligned with one of the 4 services identified.
Users then add activity information into the relevant sections, based on the scale of their project, using their budget as a guide. To make data input quicker and easier where exact information can be difficult to gather, some benchmarks have been incorporated into the tool.
This image gives an overview of the activity areas and their relative items, and which production ‘stages’ they are present in.
When to use it?
To aid procurement decisions
To aid decision making at procurement stage, it’s suggested that the brand (in collaboration with acost controller as required), select ‘key activities’. These would be defined as activities where impact is most likely to be a significant portion of the footprint (e.g. travel and spaces, good quality information is available (e.g. number of catering heads or flights required as detailed in the budget) or benchmarks which can be used (e.g. kWh per m2 at the studio or carbon per on-screen outfit).
Those bidding to provide the production services would each create a project including just these key activities using budgeted or benchmark information so that the tool can estimate the potential impact. The project would be included as part of their bid. Those who do this would also be able to discuss high impact items prior to being awarded the contract to provide the service, and demonstrate any subsequent reductions made specific to the project, once the actual data is entered whilst wrapping the production.
To generate advertising production service footprints
For ‘finished’ footprints of the advertising production service being supplied, AdGreen recommends the tool is used when the production is being wrapped, when ‘actual’ activity data is available, rather than using estimated data and re-doing the process with the actual data later.
Given the fast turnaround of advertising production projects, and the scale of adoption required for an overall carbon reduction of the service, this recommendation effectively halves the burden for production teams, and makes it more likely that they will finish a footprint, which in turn grows the dataset, and industry carbon literacy. This advice will also result in more accurate data, as the information going in will be actual from the start, rather than estimated data which needs to be updated later and may not be.
AdGreen’s mantra has long been ‘you can’t manage what you don’t measure’ and whilst one could argue that using a measurement tool at the beginning gives a sense of what can be reduced on the given project which the user could then act upon; as soon as their first project is created, the user has begun to build their knowledge of reduction opportunities, ready to implement on subsequent projects. With every project measured, the user is growing their understanding of where to focus their energy and attention.
This also aligns with AdGreen’s vision for the carbon data to be used for policy setting for high impactactivities to reach longer term reduction targets, rather than isolated incidents of reduction specific to one project.
Using the data
For policy setting
Data from the tool can be used to analyse which activity areas are routinely high over a specific timeframe, i.e. a year, enabling users to set reduction targets around specific activities, as well as set carbon budgets by client for example.
A fuller dashboard will be built out in due course, allowing users to compare one project to another, or a whole set of projects to another set. For example, users will be able to compare all projects for one specific brand or production supplier for a given timeframe, to another.
As part of corporate reporting
At present, the aggregate amount of CO2e for each activity area entry is presented to the user, along with a total for the activity, production stage, and overall project.
AdGreen is assessing demand for more detailed information such as CO2e per item in activity area entry, along with data source, year (which is returned with each API response) etc. If there is sufficient demand, AdGreen will consider how more granular information could be provided in due course.
Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD)
CSRD uses the topics set out in the European sustainability reporting standards (ESRS). Companies which are obligated to comply with CSRD are required to assess the impacts, risks and opportunities for each of the ESRS topics that are applicable to their business. If a company is reporting on CSRD, it is possible that some of the data outputs from the carbon calculator can support them on meeting the requirements for each sub-topic, specifically those which fall under E1 Climate Change (Emissions, Climate Mitigation and Energy), E3 Water and Marine Resources (Water Consumption) and E5 Resource Use and Circular Economy.
If you require these specific pieces of information, please get in touch to discuss how AdGreen can help.
How does the tool calculate emissions?
Very simply, users input raw activity data into the tool (e.g., total kWh usage in studio) which is multiplied by the relevant emission factor (e.g. CO2e per kWh) to quantify the CO2e emissions associated with that activity.
CO2e emissions [carbon data] = activity data x CO2e factor
In some cases, as noted above, benchmarks have been created, and assumptions have been made to reflect the information the user is likely to have to hand, meaning the information input by the user isn’t always in the raw form required by the factor.
As an example, instead of noting how many tonnes of clothing were purchased, which is the unit required to multiply the amount of clothing by the factor, the user instead notes how many of various outfit types were purchased, and the tool converts this into tonnes behind the scenes, using a ‘weight per outfit’ benchmark created by AdGreen.
Emission outputs from the calculator are shown in the unit kg of carbon dioxide equivalent (kgCO2e) for individual activity area entries, and then in tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e) for all values on the project overview: activity area total, section total, project total, as well as for all project totals on project list page. Each number is rounded to two decimal places (no matter the unit).
AdGreen has partnered with Climatiq for the majority of its carbon factors. Climatiq’s database of factors is made up of thousands of up-to-date and scientifically vetted emission factors, covering carbon dioxide and all constituent gases.
Climatiq’s factors are sourced from reputable government agencies and institutions, such as BEIS in the UK, the EPA in the US, and the International Energy Agency (IEA).
For each item in an activity area, the tool calculates emissions data using one of three methods:
- Using specific Climatiq API endpoints, such as travel, freight etc, where multiple variables are sent and different sources/factors are used depending on the request detail
- Using the Climatiq API ‘estimate’ endpoint, where specific factors are used by sending activity label IDs and a source, along with the relevant activity information
- Using factors stored in the tool’s back end database, offline of Climatiq
For methods 1 and 2, a request is sent, with various pieces of information, and a response is returned, which includes the CO2e amount.
For method 1, the Climatiq API endpoint will select the ‘best’ factor depending on the users’ inputs, for example the region specified when detailing accommodation location, along with number of nights. In this case, if a region-specific factor is available, it will be used - if not, it will ‘fallback’ to what it deems to be the next best option.
For method 2, factors have been pre-selected by AdGreen and mapped in the design of the API queries. In these cases, several considerations were considered when AdGreen selected the ‘best’ factor:
- How many factors are available - sometimes only one is available with a unit which aligns with information users will supply
- Source (whether it is a government publication or not)
- Whether the source is being regularly updated
- Whether Climatiq has indicated it is of good quality (i.e. there are no data quality flags)
- Data collection type (activity, spend based etc)
- Unit type (volume, distance, mass etc)
- Life cycle analysis activity where relevant: whether cradle to gate/grave for the various materials being measured, or covering fuel combustion, WTT and so on
Parity with BAFTA albert was also considered, and where appropriate the same factors were chosen: art department materials and related disposal for example.
In a very few cases, CO2e calculations are made without the use of the Climatiq API (method 3) as some factors have been created by sources not currently in Climatiq’s database, such as BAFTA albert (CO2e per paint litre, per meal), Filmlocker (CO2e per LTO tape, per hard drive).
In the case of cloud storage, due to the factors having been averaged in various ways to reduce information required from the user, the individual factors in Climatiq’s database are not called each time via an endpoint. Instead, the averages AdGreen has created are stored in the tool’s back end database, in the same way as the other offline factors.
FAQs
For those familiar with the previous iteration of the carbon calculator, generally speaking, the process of gathering and inputting information has been sped up wherever possible, with units required for carbon calculation translated into ‘production language’: things users will know intuitively or be able to find out easily. Various benchmarks have been created, and assumptions made, to make this possible.
In addition, activity areas have been updated and renamed to reflect production activities, and grouped into pre-production, shoot and post-production – with some activities appearing in multiple production stages.
You might notice some granularity has been removed due to wanting to speed up data entry (waste disposal options and meals for catering). In the case of waste, we know from 2022 and 2023 data that waste usually accounts for less than 1% of a project footprint, so we’ve removed some of the complexity around this as different options often make very little difference, relative to the overall project footprint. We’ve also removed some granularity due to lack of available factors, such as in the case of accommodation types. Despite researching extensively, the factors used by albert could not be located.
Lastly, new items have been added (volume LED, hard drives, cloud storage and LTO tapes).
Advice on moving unfinished projects into the new carbon calculator can be found here.
This would technically fall under scope 3, category 1 (purchased goods and services), however the measurement boundary is unclear, the unit of measurement not yet established, plus there isn’t a huge amount of reliable data available on its impact (although it’s understood to be large, based on the server use). AdGreen will continue to assess whether it’s possible to add measurement of AI use in the future.
Spend based information has not been allowed for, largely due to the global nature of the tool which would necessitate cost research for production specific products and materials in many different markets, but also due to the lack of spend based factors, and the resulting low accuracy.
The advice is to include your own company's office space.
In the conversations that went into creating the methodology, AdGreen was advised that even though office energy falls under operational emissions, and isn’t usually included in a production budget, it would be technically covered by the budget’s % overhead. It’s also good to understand how much of the utilities/operational emissions would feasibly be allocated to each project, so on that basis, AdGreen advises that it’s good practice to include. The same applies to days worked at home. We have made both much quicker to input so we hope users will find this simple and easy to do.
If post-production work was done at home, these days should be included in homeworking.
The benchmark was created using an offline edit suite, but in the absence of other benchmarks being available for other types of suite, at present it’s used as a proxy for any post-production suite environment. Therefore you can log all post-production days spent in suites.
Some projects involve ‘post type work’ before shoots, for example creating backgrounds / virtual worlds for volume LED/virtual shoots. This is why it appears in work spaces in both the pre- and post-production sections.
We’ve been working with the Fuel Project team (who are about to release their findings from a year-long research project), and at present it’s not possible to create a benchmark, partly because a lot of generators are sent out with capacity much bigger than required, and it might only be running at a quarter load for much of the day. However, using the information input into the fields on the generator form, we’re hoping to create benchmarks in the future.
Options available are due to available factors, in this case the Global Logistics Emissions Council database. There are no specific fuel factors available for heavy and medium goods vehicles, and for luton and panel vans, the available options are those that exist in the GLEC database. There is no HVO or electric/hybrid based factor at present but we understand they are expanding the fuel source lists - as they become available, the tool will be updated. Note that for North American trucking (i.e. journeys in the US and Canada), there is no fuel granularity in the factors at all, so picking one over another will not change the resulting co2e, but the options have been kept for data analysis.
For both vehicle types, these are not currently available factors in the Climatiq database, so cannot be calculated. We will include if factors become available. N.B. Our 2023 data shows that hydrogen was not selected for any activities logged in the old carbon calculator.
If it’s reused, it doesn’t need to be entered. Only newly purchased drives need to be entered, as all embodied co2e is front loaded in the purchase of new ones. If they’re used again, they’re essentially ‘free’ in terms of co2e.
Reuse is an option only for materials where there is a reuse factor available – this is only wood/timber (art department) and clothing (wardrobe).
If for any wardrobe or art dept materials, some was sent to landfill/energy recovery and some was recycled and/or composted, follow the below examples:
Wardrobe
10 outfits were purchased, with 9 reused or recycled and 1 sent to landfill. Create one form for 9 outfits, indicating reuse/recycling as the disposal method, and one form for 1 outfit, indicating ‘disposed of with general waste’ as the disposal method (which selects combustion or landfill based on the country/region indicated).
Art Dept
100kg of cardboard was purchased, with 90kg recycled and 10kg sent to landfill. Create one form for 90kg of cardboard, indicating recycling as the disposal method, and one form for 10kg of cardboard, indicating landfill as the disposal method.
No problem - just skip them.
In the old carbon calculator, users were required to send projects for review. The AdGreen team reviewed projects which met certain criteria regarding size and budget, checking for any errors or omissions, and once happy with any updates, marked them as complete. Completed projects went into the industry dataset.
In the making of this tool, we have improved the design to vastly reduce the opportunity to miss the items which were routinely queried when reviewing previously. The reviewing process (which had a 10 day turnaround time) also created issues where freelance staff who had finished up then had to make amendments to projects - this is no longer an issue, as users can now mark their own projects as 'closed' when they are ready (don't worry, they can be reopened if you've forgotten something!). Closed projects go into the industry dataset.
If your company is being deleted due to a merger or similar structural change, you have the option of reassigning the projects to a different company. In the case that the company ceases to exist and projects are not reassigned, the projects will be remain in the AdGreen dataset (effectively reassigned to AdGreen), but all personal and company information included within project details and activity forms will be deleted. Where the projects involve other companies, the other companies will remain able to see the projects and edit their own activity forms, and project details, as per the permissions set out in schedule 2 of the terms and conditions.