How do we make every ad a sustainable ad?

What will creative excellence awards like Cannes Lions look like by 2030?

Matt Bourn, co-author of Sustainable Advertising, shares his insights in our series Is Advertising Toast?

See our full interview with Matt Bourn below:

Matt: One of the most powerful ways to make progress in sustainability and to really achieve this goal of a sustainable advertising industry is to redefine creative excellence.

Show me the result of the campaign is better. For the planet.

Sophie Bell: Matt, fantastic to have you with us today on is advertising Toast.

So in your book Sustainable Advertising, you talk about death or glory for the advertising industry. But can we really change?

Matt: So the advertising industry is not alone with grappling with the impact of climate change. Every single industry needs to do that and come up with solutions that are essentially better for the planet.

If each year what we're doing is essentially taking market share for something that is more sustainable, more sustainable, in support of that, in support of green jobs and all of the things that essentially we need to support the way, the way we want to live our lives in a way, you know, we want people to have a quality of life.

That's what we've got to do. From very early on with Ad Net Zero we've said we want to make every ad a green ad.

There's a tremendous amount of techniques that are being developed by the likes of AD Green to really help report on the emissions or the environmental impact of ad production.

Sophie Bell: To move towards a sort of sustainable advertising future, a sustainable advertising industry. Do you think that we have to be a bit more journalistic in our approach to our work?

You know, how much is there sort of a bit more rigour that needs to go on if we're going to truly move into this sort of new era?

Matt: I think that's a really good, legitimate question. I mean, we talk about in the manifesto that we will become climate aware. We will understand the latest developments in climate science, and we will understand the behaviours that we need to promote.

And so the journalistic integrity, I think, sort of is linked to that. But I think that the sort of behaviours that the advertising promotes at the moment, some of them, I think we'll look at them and think, why and how, what's that in those ads at that time?

Our industry loves awards. Every business, whether they're an ad agency, production agency, media agency, media owner, they want to win awards.

Okay. So it's a really, really strong lever to pull if what we can do is say, well, in order to win an award, you need to include sustainability data as well as all of the other reporting. I think it would be untenable for someone to stand on a stage celebrating they've won an award by 2030 If you can't also show that the results of that campaign are better for the planet in some way, shape or form.

Sophie Bell: Do you think there's a danger that trying to focus, needing to focus on making sure what we're producing is more sustainable, will take away from creativity?

Matt: Not from what I've understood so far of what I've seen, making a brilliant production with even less or smarter ways of using that, I think will really sort of inspire more creativity.

So Cannes Lions, you know, have started to do it was a voluntary question last year gathering data.

This year there's two questions invisible to the jurors. I do think that we can get to a point where it's part and parcel of, you know, the expectation that a successful campaign that we celebrate is also proving that it's had a better outcome for the planet.

And what is the role of an art professional in a time of climate change, if it isn't to try and make everybody greener? I don't know what it is.

Check back for more interviews over the next few weeks.