Shots Magazine: The struggle to sustain sustainability

[excerpt from the article]

With a new US administration rolling back environmental initiatives and corporations following suit, what future do green practices and messaging have in the advertising industry? Tim Cumming kicks off shots’ Sustainability Focus by speaking to stakeholders on both sides of the Atlantic.

Just a few years ago, sustainability was advertising’s No. 1 chart-topper, leading industry conversations as it emerged from the remote viewing platform of the pandemic.

This shift fuelled a drive toward more sustainable productions and messaging, with brands entering the space to advertise their wares – and to wear their hearts on a visible sleeve as green champions, if not greenwashing ones.

But that was then, and come 2025, that No. 1 spot appears to be occupied by a very different kind of bottom line – with a new administration bending facts to its will in the US. Not that sustainable initiatives have gone away – pioneering advocacy groups likes AdGreen and Ad Net Zero are leading initiatives and developing and refining their tools for the trade to help make production footprints smaller.

But with what is still (at the time of writing) the world’s leading superpower aggressively dismantling sustainable directives as well tearing up a slew of long-embedded DEI initiatives – the removal of which is as painful for the wider body politic as pulling wisdom teeth – many fear a shockwave of divisive change not only across governance and industry, but through the world of branding, advertising and communications too.  

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