Marketing Services · Advertising, Media & Marketing Services
← all sectorsMarketing services networks are people-leveraged like consulting, with the added wrinkle of supply-chain emissions from production (events, print, ads served). FTE and OpEx remain the right denominators; travel intensity is a key diagnostic.
Where this sector sits globally
- Scope 3 · cat 1Production supply chainProduction agencies, talent, media buying, physical assets — print, set build, festivals.
- Scope 3 · cat 6Business travelClient visits, shoots, awards, festivals — historically high pre-pandemic.
- Scope 3 · cat 11 (use of sold products)Digital ad deliveryEnergy consumed by served digital ads. Emerging measurement via DIMPACT, Ad Net Zero.
- Scope 1 + 2Office energyOffice buildings, energy use — small share of total.
Ad Net Zero (originated UK, now global via WFA) is the industry-specific 5-action plan covering production, media, and reporting. Most networks layer this on top of SBTi general 1.5°C targets.
Sector benchmarks · headline intensities
Each strip shows where every firm in the cohort sits on one intensity axis. Lower is better — left of the strip is best, right is worst. Each peer dot tooltips its value and the year it came from. Financial denominators are converted to USD before computing so cross-currency comparisons are apples-to-apples.
Revenue intensity
Operational intensity
Economic intensity
Asset intensity
Workforce intensity
Companies · 8 firms
+ Add company| RVB ID | Company | Ticker | Subtype | HQ | Revenue | Operational | Economic | Asset | Workforce | Sources | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RVBA-DENT | 4324 | 42.50 | — | — | — | 0.19 | SBTiCDPReport | ||||
| RVBA-HAV | HAV | 27.48 | 149.92 | 32.54 | 187.05 | 0.21 | SBTiCDPReport | ||||
| RVBA-IPG | IPG | 37.92 | 43.89 | 22.65 | 134.19 | 0.57 | SBTiCDPReport | ||||
| RVBA-OMC | OMC | 25.29 | 29.89 | 13.12 | 110.59 | 0.67 | SBTiCDPReport | ||||
| RVBA-PUB | PUB | — | — | — | — | — | SBTiCDPReport | ||||
| RVBA-SFOR | SFOR | 18.70 | 13.78 | 24.45 | 184.84 | 0.32 | SBTiCDPReport | ||||
| RVBA-STGW | STGW | — | — | — | — | — | SBTiCDPReport | ||||
| RVBA-WPP | WPP | — | — | — | — | 0.10 | SBTiCDPReport |
Reference carbon factors · Marketing Services
Below sit every reference factor relevant to a marketing services firm. Use these as starting points when you need to estimate emissions for a category the cohort doesn't disclose, or to spot-check disclosed figures against the consensus range. Each value is anchored to the published source — click any source slug to open the citation.
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.