THE ADGREEN LEVY

THE ADGREEN LEVY

At AdGreen, we offer free resources, training, and carbon calculation tools, to enable the advertising production community to measure and reduce their carbon footprint. We want to offer help to anyone who wants it, for free. To do this, a small voluntary levy on production spend has been introduced on UK based productions, which is paid by pioneering advertisers who are leading the charge on reducing their impact on the environment.

Want some help communicating the key details internally, or with your clients / principal production partners? Check out our resources. You can also rewatch our levy webinar here. Outside of the UK and still want to contribute? Drop us a line.

WATCH OUR ANIMATION

Want to know more about the AdGreen Levy? The easiest way to get up to speed is to watch this animation made by our friends at cain&abelDDB.

Watch, share and read more below about how our Levy works and why it's needed.

WATCH OUR LEVY WEBINAR

Our Levy webinar introduction webinar explains how it will work, how you can support it and what you need to do next, as well as answering questions from attendees.

WHAT IS THE LEVY?

The AdGreen Levy is a recommended 0.25% of the cost to produce an advertising asset – that’s just £2.50 per £1,000 spent, and is capped at £2,500 per production.

The levy is paid to those producing work for the advertiser in the UK, and then passed onto AdGreen to enable us to continue supporting the UK advertising industry in reducing emissions from production. 

And the more advertisers who contribute, the lower we can make the levy percentage! Outside of the UK and still want to help us support production where you are? Drop us a line. 

WHY CONTRIBUTE?

Every industry has a part to play as we collectively reduce our environmental impact. In the UK, this is in line with UK Government legislation to hit net zero by 2050.

AdGreen does not act as a consultancy, rather it is a project designed to enable the advertising production community to measure and reduce its carbon footprint associated with production. The more people that have access to our resources and training, and the more organisations who record their data in our carbon calculator tool, the clearer picture we’ll have as to how we’re getting on and how we can support further reductions with infrastructure projects like Creative Energy.

The levy contributions we receive will mean that we can continue doing this.

WHO CONTRIBUTES AND HOW ARE THE PAYMENTS COLLECTED?

The levy is added to production cost estimates on relevant items by UK based Principal Production Partners (PPPs) who have registered with us, and invoiced to the advertiser once signed off. The payments are collected on AdGreen’s behalf by the PPPs and passed to us on a quarterly basis.

In most cases the PPP will be the advertiser’s advertising agency, but it could also be a production company working directly with the advertiser, or an in-house agency for example. For a full definition, see the glossary in the levy guide.

WHAT'S INCLUDED AND WHAT'S EXEMPT?

It is recommended that all costs to produce the advertising asset are included in The AdGreen Levy.

All costs to use, store and, transmit the advertising asset, as well as the principal production partner’s insurances and personnel costs (unless included in the production cost estimate) are excluded. This means things like cast, music and stock footage usage fees, legal reviews, and clearest fees aren't subject to the levy - and media spend is also not included.

The levy guide has all of the fine print.

I'M AN ADVERTISER - HOW MUCH WILL I CONTRIBUTE?

Use our calculator to quickly work out what an advertiser's contribution to The AdGreen Levy will be. Don't forget to exclude PPP insurance, plus any usage, transmission and storage costs, along with media spend.

For tax purposes, The AdGreen Levy qualifies as a normal advertising expense as per other production costs, however it is outside the scope of VAT, as paying the levy does not reflect a payment for services (it is neither exempt or zero-rated)

NOTES

Please note this is an indication of your contribution, contact your Principal Production Partner to discuss further. Payments are made via your principal production partner - please contact them directly for queries relating to the levy amount and payment. For any other queries please contact AdGreen at levy@wereadgreen.org

 

STUCK WITH INTERNAL OR EXTERNAL COMMS?

Here are a few things that might help...

  • Levy briefing deck: A brief AdGreen overview, as well as key levy details
  • AdGreen 1-pager: Covering the bigger picture: the carbon emissions problem, solution, the levy's role and the infrastructure change AdGreen will support
  • AdGreen 2-pager: Covering what AdGreen is, key offerings, who they're relevant to, key talking points, and the main calls to action
  • Template text for Principal Production Partners: If you're a PPP and registered to collect or considering it, this will give you a starting point in communicating to your clients the main info about the levy, and why it's important. Just tweak as needed!
  • Template text for Advertisers: If you're an advertiser and would like to communicate your intentions to contribute to your principal production partners, email us and we'll send you something as a starting point
  • Budget Template Guide: A 1-page PDF to help principal production partners understand how to incorporate the levy line into existing budget templates
  • Template Contract Addendum: Amend as needed and attach to an existing production contract
  • The full levy guide

WE'RE A PPP AND WE WANT TO SUPPORT - WHAT'S NEXT?

If you’re a Principal Production Partner and would like to facilitate levy collection, you’ll need to register so that we know that you intend to collect payments from your clients and hold them on our behalf until you pass them to us each quarter.

Submitting the form constitutes consent to be contacted quarterly by AdGreen regarding any payments due to us. 

ONCE YOU'RE REGISTERED, GET YOUR DUCKS IN A ROW... 

- Educate relevant internal teams as to the relevance of the levy, and how and when to start adding it to production cost estimate
- Communicate to clients that the levy will be added to production cost estimates from a specified date (they can opt-out of course)
- Adjust budget templates internally as required
- Create a budget code to tag any levy money collected, so that it can be easily reported to AdGreen, each quarter

Help with these steps can be found in the section above. For reference, the quarterly declaration form can be viewed here.

Collectors of The AdGreen Levy

The following companies are supporting the levy by collecting it from participating brands for whom they are producing advertising content. Don't see your company here and want to support AdGreen? Get in touch.

 

Accenture

Chime Communications

 

Dentsu

 

Havas

 

Inside Ideas Group

 

IPG

 

Omnicom

 

Publicis Groupe

 

Stagwell inc

 

WPP

 

Further advertising agency supporters

Production companies working directly with brands