S4 Capital — carbon factors
Reference emission factors relevant to the Marketing Services sector, curated from authoritative published sources. Use these to estimate spend-based or activity-based emissions where the firm's own disclosures don't cover a category, or to spot-check disclosed figures against the consensus range.
The spread shown for each factor is the range across published sources for the sector — not S4 Capital's own values. A wide spread means the published sources disagree (use with caution); a tight spread is a well-established consensus. S4 Capital's own disclosed figures live on the Ratios tab. (Plotting where S4 Capital sits within each distribution is on the roadmap.)
Spend-based (per currency unit) 3 categories · 6 factors
Multiply spend (in the stated currency, in the stated reference year) by the factor to estimate kgCO2e for that category of procurement. Spend-based factors carry material uncertainty but are useful when you have no activity data.
Advertising agencies, spend-based
| Value | Unit | Geo | Year | Scope | Source | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.1010 | kgCO2e/GBP | GB | 2022 | Cradle → gate S1 · S2 loc · S3↑ | defra_sic_2022 purchaser · GBP 2022 | SIC 73. DEFRA consumption-based (UK MRIO) — captures imports unlike USEEIO production-based. |
| 0.1278 | kgCO2e/USD | GB | 2022 | Cradle → gate S1 · S2 loc · S3↑ | defra_sic_2022 purchaser · USD 2022 | SIC 73. Native unit is GBP — converted to USD via static FX 0.79 GBP/USD for cross-source comparison. Recompute with accounting-period FX for production calculations. |
| 0.0850 | kgCO2e/USD | US | 2022 | Cradle → gate S1 · S2 loc · S3↑ | useeio_v1_3 purchaser · USD 2022 | USEEIO commodity 541800. NAICS 541810. Purchaser price (with margins). Multiply 2022 USD spend × value to get kgCO2e. |
| 0.0672 | kgCO2e/GBP | US | 2022 | Cradle → gate S1 · S2 loc · S3↑ | useeio_v1_3 purchaser · GBP 2022 | USEEIO commodity 541800, converted USD→GBP at static rate (0.79). For production, recompute with the accounting-period FX rate. |
Advertising production, industry average
| Value | Unit | Geo | Year | Scope | Source | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9.200 | kgCO2e/production | GLOBAL | 2024 | Cradle → gate S1 · S2 loc · S3↑ | adgreen_2024 | Mean across all wrapped productions. Median is much lower (~0.75 tCO2e) — distribution is long-tail, dragged up by global TVC outliers. Use the budget-banded factors for cohort-specific estimates. |
Advertising production, per £ of production budget
| Value | Unit | Geo | Year | Scope | Source | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.0800 0.0400 – 0.1500 | kgCO2e/GBP | GB | 2024 | Cradle → gate S1 · S2 loc · S3↑ | adgreen_2024 purchaser · GBP 2024 | Production-side only. For media placement intensity per £, use DIMPACT or IAB GMSF. Combine production + placement for total campaign footprint. |
Activity-based (per physical unit) 5 categories · 8 factors
Multiply physical activity (passenger-km, kWh, room-night) by the factor to estimate kgCO2e. Gold standard — most accurate when you can collect the underlying activity data from invoices, expense reports, or operational systems.
Stills shoot, small (1-day studio)
| Value | Unit | Geo | Year | Scope | Source | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 800 400 – 1500 | kgCO2e/project | GB | 2024 | Cradle → gate S1 · S2 loc · S3↑ | adgreen_2024 | |
| 4.200 | kgCO2e/production | GB | 2024 | Cradle → gate S1 · S2 loc · S3↑ | adgreen_2024 | PROXY VALUE. AdGreen 2024 report confirms calculator now serves stills photographers but does not publish stills-specific benchmarks. The ≤£50k/day band is used here as the closest plausible substitute. |
TV commercial production, large international (£100-500k/shoot day)
| Value | Unit | Geo | Year | Scope | Source | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20.30 | kgCO2e/production | GLOBAL | 2024 | Cradle → gate S1 · S2 loc · S3↑ | adgreen_2024 | ~20% of 2024 projects. Long-haul flights and freight typically dominate (>50% of footprint). |
| 80000 40000 – 200000 | kgCO2e/project | GLOBAL | 2024 | Cradle → gate S1 · S2 loc · S3↑ | adgreen_2024 | Long-haul flights and freight typically dominate. AdGreen reports flights are usually >50% of large-shoot footprints. |
TV commercial production, mid (£50-100k/shoot day)
| Value | Unit | Geo | Year | Scope | Source | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6.700 | kgCO2e/production | GB | 2024 | Cradle → gate S1 · S2 loc · S3↑ | adgreen_2024 |
TV commercial production, small (≤£50k/shoot day)
| Value | Unit | Geo | Year | Scope | Source | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5000 2500 – 10000 | kgCO2e/project | GB | 2024 | Cradle → gate S1 · S2 loc · S3↑ | adgreen_2024 | Includes crew/talent travel, set build, lighting/power, transport, post-production. Excludes media placement. Replace with real AdGreen project export when available. |
| 4.200 | kgCO2e/production | GB | 2024 | Cradle → gate S1 · S2 loc · S3↑ | adgreen_2024 | ~50% of 2024 projects fall in this band. Includes crew/talent travel, set build, lighting/power, transport, post-production. Excludes media placement. |
TV commercial production, XL flagship (>£500k/shoot day)
| Value | Unit | Geo | Year | Scope | Source | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 75.10 | kgCO2e/production | GLOBAL | 2024 | Cradle → gate S1 · S2 loc · S3↑ | adgreen_2024 | Top of the AdGreen distribution. Multi-location international shoots with large crews + freight. |
Reference factors are curated from the published sources at the indicated vintage and refreshed manually as new releases land. Apply with care: spend-based factors carry material uncertainty (often ±50%); activity-based factors require the right unit basis (e.g. gross vs net CV for natural gas, with-RF vs without-RF for air); product PCFs differ in lifecycle scope between vendors (Apple uses post-mitigation, others use pre-mitigation — we have aligned to pre-mitigation baselines for laptops). Re-check against the citation before any external-facing calculation.