Tag: Sustainability

Singapore – Digital travel platform Booking.com has partnered with the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) of the United Nations to launch a new series of free online courses designed to support accommodations on their journey to operate more sustainably.

Providing practical knowledge around sustainability for accommodations, each course will focus on a different topic: local community engagement, energy usage & greenhouse gases, food management, and water management.

The modules share actionable recommendations that accommodation providers can immediately start integrating into their practices, ranging from how to calculate a property’s energy consumption and reduce its emissions to best practices for community engagement.

The series is led by respected subject-matter experts and academics, providing strong technical expertise, deep industry knowledge and a data-driven approach. Booking.com accommodation partners are also included in the modules as a way of sharing practical success stories from their own individual sustainability journeys. 

Talking about this initiative, Danielle D’Silva, head of sustainability at Booking.com, said, “We are excited to expand our longstanding relationship with UNWTO and deliver this new educational series which responds to the desire of accommodation providers for resources on how to implement more sustainable practices.”

“Supporting partners, and the wider industry, to integrate more sustainability practices into their operations is a core component of our mission to make it easier for everyone to experience the world. By increasing the supply of more sustainable accommodation options, we are also enabling travellers to make more mindful travel choices. This ultimately benefits the places we visit, the people who live there and the planet,” she added. 

Meanwhile, Natalia Bayona, executive director at UNWTO, commented, “Education and skills development are the foundations for building a more sustainable tourism sector. UNWTO looks forward to working with Booking.com to enable accommodations everywhere to benefit from the wide range of resources available through the UNWTO Tourism Online Academy.”

Singapore – Telecommunications company Singtel has recently announced its partnership with television channel Nickelodeon to launch an electronic waste recycling campaign to raise greater awareness of the impact of e-waste on the planet, and how recycling helps in reducing one’s environmental footprint.

Dubbed ‘Go Green with the Turtles’, the integrated campaign features Nickelodeon’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, encouraging members of the public to drop off their unwanted electronic devices at designated recycling bins at selected Singtel shops.

With the campaign running from December 1,2023 to February 29, 2024, the items will be refurbished by Engineering Good, Singtel’s non-profit device circularity partner, and distributed to vulnerable communities so that they too can enjoy the benefits of a digital lifestyle. 

The campaign includes a series of animated videos featuring the Turtles rallying viewers to become “eco-ninjas” and join them in their mission to reduce e-waste, or as they call it, ‘technotrash’.

These will be aired on Nickelodeon as well as other English channels on Singtel TV, Singtel TV GO and the CAST app, Singtel and Nickelodeon’s social media channels, as well as four Singtel shops. There will also be a booth at Singapore Comic Con where visitors can meet their favourite Turtle heroes, take part in challenges to win attractive prizes and enjoy event-exclusive freebies. Singtel customers get 10% off tickets to the convention.

Talking about the campaign, Diana Chen, managing director, customer management at Singtel Singapore, said, “Singtel is committed to playing its part to bring about a greener future. In keeping with our goal of achieving net zero by 2045, we’ve been taking active steps to improve our energy efficiency across our mobile base stations, increase the use of renewable energy sources and reduce packaging to minimise our environmental impact.”

“We’re pleased to partner like-minded organisations such as Nickelodeon and Engineering Good to raise greater awareness of climate change and device circularity among the public. We want to inspire more people, especially families with kids, to take steps, no matter how small, to fight the effects of the climate crisis,” she added.

Thailand – The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) has tapped creative agency BBDO Bangkok for its latest ‘Meaningful Relationship’ campaign that places Thailand as the ultimate destination for sustainable tourism.

TAT’s new campaign features a breathtaking narrative film that challenges all preconceived notions of Thailand, shifting the spotlight from brief encounters to profound, enduring bonds with the country.

Titled ‘I Have a Relationship in Thailand’, the film created by Cannes Lions Winner Thay Littichai moves beyond the typical tourist experience and unveils the truth that relationships forged in Thailand are far from brief affairs. Rather, they are profound, enduring, and immensely enriching experiences that set the stage for a captivating tale of a lifetime.

The campaign aims to position the country as a top destination for sustainable tourism, targeting a whopping 947,000 visitors from the UK by the end of 2024. It spotlights the vibrant tapestry of Thailand’s diverse and culturally rich landscape and fosters a deeper understanding and appreciation of what it can offer.

TAT aims to provide tourists with an experience that is more than just visiting a destination but also embarking on a transformative journey of discovery and connection, with Thailand as the perfect partner.

Thasorn Boonyanate, chief creative officer at BBDO Bangkok, shared, “When we pitched this project, we knew we weren’t just competing against other agencies; we were up against other countries in the game of capturing love. If travel is a passionate affair, then Thailand is the long-term partner who offers affectionate warmth from the sun, peace with the serene embrace of the sea, and the strength and support of the mountains. We have unwavering confidence that this campaign will play a pivotal role in seducing tourists to fall head over heels for Thailand.”

Nithee Seeprae, deputy governor for marketing communications at TAT, also said, “Our “Meaningful Relationship” film is an integral part of our latest communication campaign, designed to ignite wanderlust in globetrotters worldwide. We want every traveller to indulge in meaningful connections with every aspect of Thailand, be it the locals, the communities, nature, or unforgettable, one-of-a-kind experiences.”

Singapore – Laura Kantor, who previously worked as foodpanda’s marketing and sustainability director, has launched Climate Club, a new agency focused on sustainability communications.

For Kantor, she wanted to create an agency that helps businesses prioritise sustainability through compelling campaigns that drive bottom line results.

During her previous role at foodpanda, she grew the marketing function from 5 to 32, launched 6 new businesses, rebranded foodpanda from orange to pink and launched the loveable mascot, Pau-Pau.

She is also well known for is well for spearheading foodpanda’s sustainability strategy across the Asia-Pacific region, launching several initiatives which have transformed the F&B industry; saving billions of sets of cutlery & becoming the first delivery company to ban the sale of shark fin.

“Very few businesses take Sustainability seriously. It’s often only talked about on Earth Day, or with a one off PR stunt, and it doesn’t have to be the case. Our goal at Climate Club is to turn Sustainability into a competitive advantage – either by reducing costs or generating revenue, all while creating positive impact, so that business leaders make it a priority,” she said.

Kantor added, “After years of working within the sustainability space, I’m so excited to focus all of my efforts on helping businesses build an impactful and meaningful sustainability strategy.”

Prior to launching Climate Club, she also served as the chief marketing and impact officer for abillion, a mobile application which helps users to find vegan and sustainable products.

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.”