Do you know the environmental impact of your content? Marketing is often an overlooked carbon emitter but don’t worry, there are a few ways you can reduce and offset the carbon of your marketing.
The Carbon Impact of Marketing
More and more of us are spending our time online, whether that’s working, browsing social media, or shopping on the web. Businesses are also moving the bulk of their marketing online as it’s more cost-effective and one of the best ways to directly reach and engage with their target audience.
A common misconception is that your business's digital activity doesn’t physically impact the climate, unlike more traditional forms of marketing such as print media.
This couldn’t be further from the truth, so how do you calculate your carbon footprint?
Our Carbon Calculator, How Does it Work?
Working out just how much CO2 your marketing emits is easier said than done, which is why we created our easy-to-use carbon calculator.
After many hours of research on the web, looking at articles, research papers and more, we worked out an estimate for the average CO2e emissions of various types of content such as video minutes watched, website page views and social media post impressions.
This means all the hard work is done for you. All you have to do is enter your marketing stats into our calculator, and we add it all together to give you an estimate of your CO2e emissions in tonnes.
Typical Marketing Activity and Their CO2e Emissions
As we mentioned, different types of content or marketing activity emit different amounts of C02e. We wanted to share some of these stats with you.
Did you know…
- The average webpage view releases 0.5g of CO2e
- A one-minute video will emit 3g of C02e per view
- Every social media post impression emits an average of 1.5g of C02e
- 4g of C02e is emitted for every marketing email you send
- 0.1g of C02e is emitted for every minute spent listening to a podcast
These stats might seem like a drop in the ocean, but over the course of a week, month or year, they soon start to add up.
Why Your Marketing Should Go Green
Consumers are much more environmentally aware and want to work with brands that are too.
By making a conscious effort to make your marketing greener, you could be attracting a wider audience who want to work with climate positive brands like you.
Having strong sustainability policies would be what sets you apart from your competitors, again boosting sales.
It also shows you’re going above and beyond to positively impact our planet vs greenwashing, something many companies are guilty of.
Not only can it have an impact on your sales and audience, but you’ll also be doing your part for the planet, helping to reduce the substantial amount of carbon that is created each year from digital activities.
Ways to Offset Your Carbon Footprint
Although your marketing is having an environmental impact, we’re not saying to stop all together.
Every business needs a digital presence to survive, so it’s necessary for you to continue your digital marketing activities, but there are a few ways for your business to offset its carbon such as:
- Being selective about the tech providers you work with. Look at their environmental policies and the action they take around sustainability.
- Switch to 100% renewable energy.
- Work with carbon offsetting and tree planting initiatives to balance out the carbon you're releasing.
- Be mindful of the number of newsletters you send. Think quality rather than quantity - don't be afraid to purge stale leads from your list!
- Streamline your website. Remove any unnecessary pages, plug-ins and large integrations to reduce load speed and bandwidth usage (this will also help with you're SEO).
