Sustainability Archives - Page 2 of 6

New York, USA – South Korean multinational electronics company LG has partnered with advertising agency TBWA\Chiat\Day New York for its new ‘Better Choices Make a Better World’ campaign that echoes the company’s commitment to sustainability.

The multifaceted campaign features a hero film that follows three ‘changemakers’ who are creating a more sustainable future with the help of LG’s home appliances. The global campaign used mixed-media to bring together live-action miniatures, 3D models, and animation, creating a miniature world that represents a better world with LG appliances.

For this campaign to be possible, LG and TBWA\Chiat\Day New York tapped global creative studio LOBO, which specialises in moving images, to bring to life their campaign film through a certified ‘green’ production.

To further show their commitment to sustainable initiatives, LG has also worked with consulting firms Set Sustentável and Casa Causa to ensure that, from conception to execution, the new global campaign would have a reduced environmental impact.

The consulting film was tasked with overseeing the production process to reduce the environmental impact through waste management initiatives.

Sookie Roh, vice president and head of LG Electronics home appliances and air solution brand communication division, said, “LG appliances are well known for their category-creating innovation, but we do not believe in innovation for the sake of innovation. Over the years, we have been raising awareness of sustainability initiatives connected to our products, and in our latest campaign, we aim to connect to an audience that shares our belief in the power of positive change—the brave optimists we call changemakers.”

“We want to convey that our customers have the potential to change the world through the choices that they make in their daily lives,” she added.

Speaking on the campaign, Allie Lightcap, business director at TBWA\Chiat\Day New York, also shared, “When we learned about the positive, eco-conscious technology of LG’s home appliance products, it was important to us that we had the same commitment to the environment through our production craft: from the development of each unique character to building the miniature sets to crafting the 3D models of LG’s home appliances. We made sure that the campaign represented the same attention to detail and sustainability as LG’s products.”

Sydney, Australia – With the impact of the cost-of-living crisis creeping up into the lives of Australians amidst sustainability issues, market research firm Kantar states that brands must show initiative and leadership to inspire behavioural change. In Kantar’s report titled the Kantar Sustainability Sector Index 2023, the firm explores the issues that Australians face, as well as their opinions around it.

Data from the report mainly suggests that 7 out of 10 Australians cite cost as being prohibitive to actioning real sustainable behaviour change, saying that things better for the society and the environment are more expensive.

Moreover, the study also explored the sustainability issues that Australians are most concerned with, citing mental health, poverty, and climate change as the most prominent issues that they want to see addressed.

To be specific, the cost-of-living crisis is biting hard on Australia’s mental health, which is the sustainability issue that Australians want addressed for the second year in a row. Additionally, 76% of respondents want to live a sustainable lifestyle but only 22% are doing so because they struggle to translate their values into action due to this crisis.

With this in mind however, 6 in10 Australians say that it is hard to tell which products are good or bad ethically or for the environment and over one-third don’t know where to find sustainable or ethical products. Plus, more than half of them want clear certification explaining the environmental or ethical benefits that would influence their purchase.

Notably, climate change also continues to rank highly as both an issue of concern and one that people want addressed as 60% of Australians say they expect to personally feel climate change effects in their lifetime and want real action. They believe it is a responsibility of companies and brands to help solve or tackle climate change and environmental issues, with only 27% thinking that those companies and brands are already taking those actions.

Talking about these findings, Carolyn Reid, head of qualitative at Kantar Australia, said, “A new consumption culture is emerging, and brands must think or rethink how they create value and innovate. Successful brands make people feel empowered to make truly better choices. Brands can enable behaviour change by using the Sustainability Sector Index to identify levers that will prevent or enable change to both design and execute for success.”

“It is imperative to prioritise both the social and environmental issues impacting your brands, products or services – and the lives of the people you seek to meaningfully connect with. It ensures the insights, territories or innovations that you address are ownable and distinctive to your brand, while understanding your brand’s sustainability table stakes. Further, it provides actionable guidelines on how to express your ambitions and actions in the most authentic, impactful, and differentiated way,” she added.

Meanwhile, Madeleine Andrews and Mathilde Pernot, sustainability leads at Kantar Australia, also commented, “Sustainability isn’t an option for brands anymore but delivers a business imperative and a commercial opportunity. Getting this right is crucial. However, many people feel let down when it comes to sustainability. Acting with bravery and boldness to lead the way in sustainability is a critical imperative for any sector.”

Singapore – Collaborative sustainability platform Scope3 today announced a US$20 million Series B funding round led by GV, which will be used to accelerate the development of Scope3’s collaborative sustainability platform (CSP), a first-of-its-kind platform that visualises the massively interconnected ad ecosystem while powering meaningful carbon reduction.

Aside from the CSP development, Scope3 will also be using the GV led funding to grow its global team of advertising, tech, and sustainability experts and further expand its data and measurement capabilities.

Talking about Scope3’s efforts, Brian O’Kelley, co-Founder and CEO of Scope3, expressed that the climate crisis is an urgent and global problem, and that the world’s largest brands, advertisers, and businesses are starting to embrace sustainability as an opportunity that is both good for the planet and the business, making sustainable advertising inevitable.

“At Scope3, we’re building a business that will serve as the foundation for the next generation of media and advertising. This investment gives us the resources to put decarbonisation tools into the hands of the industry, while attracting the talent needed to build a more sustainable ad ecosystem and deliver on our mission,” he added.

Speaking on the investment, Kelley concluded, “I’m grateful for the support of GV and our other investors, as well as the many clients, partners, and industry leaders who have helped us get to this point GV’s climate tech focus and extensive knowledge of the nuances of advertising technology make them the perfect fit.”

Meanwhile, Erik Nordlander, general partner at GV, commented, “Scope3’s focus on measurement and reduction takes the right approach to decarbonisation and we’re confident in their ability to move the entire digital ad ecosystem toward climate progress. We are delighted to support their business expansion.”

Notably, Scope3’s additional investors in this round also include Room40 Ventures and Venrock.

Sydney, Australia – Ad platform Good-Loop and Yahoo have recently announced a global partnership offering carbon neutral private marketplace (PMP) media opportunities to advertisers, in order to help them become more sustainable.

Through this partnership, advertisers and agencies buying through Yahoo’s DSP will now have access to the PMPs that rank in the top 25%, helping them ensure their ad campaigns are in line with their larger sustainability efforts.

Good-Loop achieves this by ranking domain in supply-side platforms (SSPs) based on their carbon score, allowing advertisers to easily find and buy low carbon emission supply, joining brands who are prioritising climate-friendly media with Good-Loop.

On the other hand, Yahoo recently introduced its direct-to-publisher platform, ‘Yahoo Backstage,’ which serves as a reliable MFA-free supply source on the open Web with ‘Made for Advertising’ (MFA) sites consuming 21% of all programmatic ad impressions, leading to significant waste and carbon emissions.

Elizabeth Herbst-Brady, chief revenue officer at Yahoo, said, “Good-Loop’s carbon scoring provides advertisers with information about each publisher’s carbon footprint, allowing them to make more informed choices when it comes to the environmental impact of their ad campaigns. This improves the advertiser’s decision process, while also acting as an incentive for publishers to reduce carbon emissions, whether through supply path optimisation or improving infrastructure.”

Meanwhile, Amy Williams, CEO and founder, Good-Loop, commented, “Now, Yahoo is also driving the industry toward more sustainable advertising habits by expanding advertiser awareness of low-emission PMPs—just one of several reasons we’re thrilled to partner with Yahoo. Together, we’re bringing the industry one step closer to its sustainability goals, giving advertisers around the globe the power to minimise their carbon footprint by evaluating the carbon cost of their campaign when media planning.”

Singapore – Outbrain has announced a strategic partnership with Cedara, an end-to-end carbon intelligence platform, to support Outbrain and its customers’ sustainability and decarbonisation efforts.

The partnership will allow Outbrain to share in-depth emissions measurements with its advertiser partners, including those running on the company’s newly launched branding platform, ‘Onyx by Outbrain’. It will also enable the company to comprehensively measure carbon emissions across its global organisation.

Moreover, the company announced the launch of its ‘smart-throttling’ tool – a response prediction model which uses machine learning to predict and recommend the most valuable requests for its demand-side-platform (DSP) partners.

Outbrain will leverage Cedara’s technology to assess its own current baseline, analyse data to identify areas for improvement, and empower advertisers to gain visibility into the emissions derived from their campaigns with Outbrain. The partnership also supports the industry-wide initiative Ad Net Zero, aimed at decarbonising the production, distribution, and publication of advertising.

Yaron Galai, co-founder and co-CEO of Outbrain, said, “Outbrain is committed to shaping a better and more sustainable digital advertising ecosystem, and our partnership with Cedara combined with our Smart-Throttling tool will give us another avenue to support our premium publisher partners while addressing the need to reduce carbon emissions and ensure advertisers have a transparent way to measure the impact of their campaigns.”

He added, “Our direct integrations with many of the most prestigious publishers across the globe make us supply-path-optimised by design, and this added layer will enable us to strengthen our focus on sustainability to continue building deeper partnerships with advertisers.”

Meanwhile, David Shaw, CEO & co-founder of Cedara, commented, “Cedara is thrilled to further enable Outbrain’s commitment to sustainability, while supporting their publisher and advertiser partners’ own paths to net zero. We applaud Outbrain’s industry-leading efforts at both an organisational and technological level in decarbonisation.”

Singapore – Marketing and monetisation technologies provider InMobi has announced its strategic partnership with climate action programme Ad Net Zero to strengthen its commitment to developing more sustainable advertising practices.

The partnership comes as InMobi recognises the growing importance of including sustainability in business decisions.

The tech company’s resolute commitment to sustainability aligns with Ad Net Zero’s mission to revolutionise the advertising landscape through decarbonisation initiatives spanning ad production, distribution, and publication.

By joining forces, InMobi will align its future actions with Ad Net Zero’s five-step plan designed to minimise the carbon footprint of advertising. The organisation’s five-step plan highlights the need to reduce the carbon emissions coming from media and advertising production and operations.

This partnership also builds on InMobi’s sustainability commitments to the Science-Based Targets Initiative (SBTi), Givsly, and AdTechCares. It recognises the significance of demonstrating sustainability efforts to both its existing clients and potential partners.

Further highlighting their commitment to sustainable ad practices, the company is putting the spotlight on their InMobi Exchange. The platform is powered by Microsoft Azure, which boasts complete carbon neutrality.

The data gleaned from the Microsoft Azure Impact Emissions Dashboard showcases InMobi’s impressive emission reduction metrics, ranking them in the top fifth percentile compared to average server emission factors.

The server usage also demonstrated a remarkable 80–90% higher green efficiency compared to alternative on-premise solutions, even high-efficiency ones. And direct SDK integrations, when paired with machine learning, have driven emission reductions of up to 30%.

Kunal Nagpal, chief business officer at InMobi, said, “InMobi’s partnership with Ad Net Zero symbolises our dedication to ushering in a more sustainable era for the advertising industry.”

“We are proud to stand alongside fellow tech companies and agencies, united in the pursuit of a greener, more responsible future. By fully embracing Ad Net Zero’s comprehensive plan, we are steadfast in our commitment to minimising our environmental impact while advancing the power of advertising,” he continued.

Commenting on the partnership, Rishi Bedi, managing director at InMobi Asia Pacific, also said, “Our partnership with Ad Net Zero strengthens and accelerates InMobi’s commitment to creating a more sustainable advertising ecosystem.”

He added, “By embracing Ad Net Zero’s comprehensive five-step plan, InMobi will be able to further reduce carbon emissions, minimising our environmental impact while advancing the power of advertising across the globe.”

Meanwhile, John Osborn, director at Ad Net Zero U.S., said, “Ad Net Zero is thrilled to work with InMobi as they support more sustainable advertising solutions, contributing to our collective global impact. InMobi’s commitment is another significant step towards an eco-friendly future for the industry.”

Manila, Philippines – Acer Philippines recently launched their Acer Day #MakeYourGreenMark campaign in line with their 20th anniversary, aiming to amplify the brand’s message of Acer’s commitment to a more sustainable future to millions across the globe.

The campaign’s unique call to action helped boost Acer Philippines’ sustainability message through a combination of innovative promotions, CSR partnerships, and event entertainment. Notably, Acer Philippines also released their #AceYourWorld original song and music video featuring brand ambassadors Sarah Geronimo and SB19 as part of the campaign.

For the campaign, Acer Philippines mainly staged a ‘Green Mark’ concert featuring a line-up of famous Filipino artists, and fans earned tickets through green initiatives such as donations to The Green Earth Heritage Foundation and plastic contributions to The Plastic Flamingo.

The concert was attended by 15,000 on-ground and online fans and reached over 714 million people worldwide. More importantly, the campaign raised funds amounting to over million pesos, which will be used to plant 5,401 trees to help in forest rehabilitation efforts and a donation of over 20 metric tons of plastic to be transformed into a range of sustainable construction materials.

MARKETECH APAC also reached out to Princess Laosantos, senior marketing manager at Acer Philippines, to shed more light on Acer Philippines’ sustainability efforts.

When asked about the reason as to why Acer Philippines went for a concert initiative as a sustainability platform, Laosantos said that it was mainly because music speaks to all ages, which makes the initiative relevant and relatable.

“Our target audience is young, so we wanted to be relevant and relatable to them. What better way to do that than through music? Music is a universal language that speaks to people of all ages, and we wanted to convey our messages in a language understood by many,” she told MARKETECH APAC.

It is also worth mentioning that prior to this concert initiative, Acer Philippines had already launched key efforts when it comes to sustainability through previous projects and their product lineup.

“In 2021, we introduced the ‘Earthion (Earth Mission) Project’, which strives to be more sustainable by using recyclable materials and more sustainable processes to engage an ecosystem where our suppliers follow suit. We have also launched the Acer ‘Vero’ line, a range of products made from 20-30% post-consumer plastics in our computers, displays, accessories, and home appliances. We have also pledged to use 100% renewable energy by 2035 and net-zero carbon emissions by 2050,”she said.

She also added, “We are very proud of the efforts that our employees, partners, and customers have made so far for the planet. We hope that they all continue to be responsible citizens for the environment. We also hope that they spread the word about what Acer is doing. We always say that sustainability is in Acer’s DNA. Sustainability is also the driving force for the future.”

APAC – Hewlett Packard (HP) Enterprise has announced that it has signed an agreement with Schneider Electric to provide customers in Asia Pacific with a broad range of sustainability IT products and services.

The agreement builds on twenty years of collaboration in the region between the two companies and will see them working together to help customers drive down their IT carbon footprint and emissions.

Under the aforementioned agreement, HPE will offer its portfolio of sustainable IT solutions and services such as HPE GreenLake cloud services which helps enterprises deliver outcomes more efficiently, HPE’s IT asset lifecycle services to give new life to used IT equipment, HPE Services that improve sustainability outcomes, as well as sustainability dashboard on the HPE GreenLake platform which provides visibility, monitoring, and management of IT energy consumption and carbon footprint.

By combining their distinct areas of sustainability expertise, Schneider Electric and HPE will make it easy for customers to seamlessly access sustainability products, solutions, and services available from each company. Which in turn, enables customers a more streamlined approach to manage their organization’s carbon footprints across their entire value chain.

Mohan Krishnan, vice president and general manager of HPE GreenLake Cloud Services, Asia Pacific, said, “This alignment enables our customers to partner closely with HPE and Schneider Electric and seamlessly tap into our collective suite of sustainability offerings.

Meanwhile, Giuliana Auinger, head of sustainability business, Asia Pacific at Schneider Electric, commented, “This agreement will enable more organizations to take advantage of the decades-long expertise we have in delivering IT solutions to enterprises in the region, and we look forward to helping customers manage their carbon footprint and shift towards clean, renewable energy.”

The new agreement will cover customer engagements across Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam.

Singapore – Singaporean bank DBS has recently unveiled its metaverse concept for ‘DBS BetterWorld’, a gamified adventure that leverages the use of the metaverse as a force that promotes sustainability.

In line with the ‘Towards Zero Food Waste’ initiative of DBS in 2020, the virtual experience highlights the global food waste challenge and what Businesses for Impact supported by the DBS Foundation are doing to address the issue.

As part of the experience, players must complete a series of activities inspired by five Businesses for Impact supported by the DBS Foundation and their unique approach to mitigating food waste.

The five businesses involved are upcycling craft beer makers Brewerkz and Breer, sustainable food retail store GreenPrice, and urban farming practitioners Edible Garden City and Rooftop Republic.

Players based in Singapore will be treated to extra rewards which can be redeemed via special QR codes accessed using DBS PayLah!. DBS has also included easter eggs for players to discover, including cameo appearances by characters from the bank’s web series, ‘Sparks’. DBS BetterWorld will be accessible to the public once the sandbox’s alpha season 4 is launched.

Karen Ngui, head of group strategic marketing and communications at DBS, and board member of DBS Foundation, said, “DBS believes that it is possible to leverage the metaverse as a force for good. It can be harnessed as an interactive platform to increase awareness of important ESG issues and creatively spotlight those who are finding innovative ways to address them.”

“For starters, with DBS BetterWorld, we have chosen to delve into the challenges of food waste and food resilience, issues that DBS and the DBS Foundation have been championing, in a unique and engaging way. As metaverse technologies mature, we hope to create mechanisms for communities and businesses to translate the outcomes of their virtual initiatives to real world impact,” she added.

Singapore – Singaporean media company Stellar Ace has unveiled the ‘Green Package’, a first-of-its-kind initiative to support all companies that need to promote their environment friendly efforts.

Being a part of Stellar Ace’s ‘Green Journey’ workflow, the new offering will be focusing on sustainability, considering the entire life cycle of each client’s advertising campaign, from the supplies and processes used, to end-of-life recycling.

In this light, Green Package will be committed to the use of eco-friendly FSC certified paper and environmentally friendly inks for printed materials. Large format displays will also be using PET backlit materials and the most recyclable plastic available, ensuring high vividness and contrast for client advertisements while remaining environmentally friendly.

Stellar Ace’s Green Package offers two features with the first one being that every asset purchased by a client to promote their ESG initiatives will be matched by Stellar Ace, effectively doubling the client’s ESG efforts at no additional cost.

The second feature is that clients can choose from three network solution bundles namely Planet Save, Happy Forest and Eco-view which combine OOH, DOOH and Online assets, and are available at half the cost for ESG driven content. Each package will save an estimated 0.022 tons of CO2e in carbon footprint and 199.73 tons of CO2e in light savings per unit. Additionally, the production cost of the free assets will be absorbed by Stellar Ace.

Speaking on this, Jeslyn Tan, managing director of Stellar Ace, said, “We have a responsibility to our planet, and the time to act is now. The Green Package represents our commitment to sustainability and offers our clients a tangible way to enhance their own green initiatives.”