Perspectives: Advertising and climate change – Part of the problem or part of the solution?

1 Perspectives: Advertising and climate change - Part of the problem or part of the solution? Patrick Hartmanna, Aitor Marcosa, Juana Castrob and Vanessa Apaolazaa aFaculty of Economics and Business Administration, University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, Bilbao, Spain bInstitute of Environmental Science and Technology, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain Corresponding author: Patrick Hartmann ([email protected]) Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, Avda. Lehendakari Aguirre 83, 48015 Bilbao, Spain Acknowledgments This work was supported by the Spanish Government and European Regional Development Fund [grant number PID2021-123686OB-I00 AEI/FEDER UE], the Basque Government [grant numbers IT1731-22, PRE-2021-2-0037] and FESIDE Foundation [grant number 03-21]. There are no competing interests to declare. 1 Perspectives: Advertising and climate change - Part of the problem or part of the solution? Abstract The advertising industry has a direct carbon footprint but also contributes to climate change by stimulating unsustainable economic growth, promoting climate-harmful consumerism, and greenwashing polluting products and companies. However, advertising can also play a pivotal role in fighting climate change. The advertising industry can reduce its carbon footprint, fight greenwashing, and cut ties with polluting clients and industries. Green advertising can shift consumers away from climate-harmful consumption patterns toward a low-carbon culture by providing accurate information and leveraging psychological processes such as moral satisfaction, nature experiences, and fear responses, among others. For advertising research to play a significant role in this paradigm shift, it should focus more specifically on climate-relevant behaviors instead of on general green consumer behavior, and adopt a more holistic approach to analyze the role of advertising not only in influencing individual consumers’ decisions but also in sustaining a cultural narrative that promotes climate protection. Keywords: green advertising; climate change; greenwashing; green consumer; carbon footprint Introduction There is a broad consensus among scientists that the climate crisis is one of the greatest challenges of our time and the carbon emissions caused by our consumption habits are the primary cause of climate change, with more than 70% of global greenhouse gas emissions directly arising from household consumption decisions (Ivanova et al. 2016; Hertwich and Peters 2009). Advertising has been shown in practice and research to affect consumer behavior. Changes in unsustainable consumption patterns could substantially reduce households’ carbon footprint (Moran et al. 2020), particularly in high-income countries where consumers have a wide range of options (Dubois et al. 2 2019). Advertising can affect consumer choice between different alternatives, but it can also motivate purchases that in absence of advertising would not have taken place. Although it is yet unclear whether advertising can increase overall aggregate consumption, there is evidence supporting advertising’s role in driving economic growth (Kopf, Torres, and Enomoto 2011; Molinari and Turino 2018). While the emissions caused by advertisement production and dissemination—including its impact on the communication sector—constitute the industry’s direct carbon footprint, advertising may also have a significant influence on climate change through its effect on consumer behavior. However, there is yet scarce literature on the relationship between advertising and climate change. Does advertising contribute to climate change? Can, on the contrary, advertising help mitigate climate change? Departing from the premise that advertising plays an active role in shaping public tastes and habits beyond influencing purchases, this article aims to provide a perspective on whether and how advertising and climate change are connected. The article is organized as follows (Table 1): We start by examining the direct and indirect environmental impacts of advertising, along with the widespread practice of greenwashing (i.e., the use of deceptive or ambiguous green messages). We then explore the advertising industry’s plans to green its sector and the green advertising strategies aimed at conveying and strengthening pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors among consumers. We conclude this paper by discussing upcoming challenges the research community and the advertising industry will need to address to make advertising part of the solution to the climate crisis. Advertising as part of the problem The carbon footprint of the advertising industry Advertising and media agencies cause a significant amount of carbon emissions when designing and implementing their clients’ advertising and communication campaigns. Carbon emissions are not only generated by industry’s operational activities like air traveling and events, but also by the 3 communication sector that transmits advertising messages through media of any kind. Print media, electronics, and other means to convey messages consume material and energy resources that add to the carbon footprint of the advertising industry. For instance, based on data from the Bristol City Council (2019), campaigners in the UK estimated that a double-sided digital bus stop advertising screen consumes four times more electricity than the average British home (Adblock Bristol 2019). Also, several US municipalities are implementing environmentally motivated restrictions on lighted on-premise signs (Taylor and Sarkees 2016). Despite agencies and professionals acknowledging the environmental impact of the sector (Timperley 2021), advertising production increases year by year driven by clients’ demands: From 2020 to 2021, global advertising spending increased by $78bn to a total of $657bn (Barker 2021) and market predictions point to a rapid increase in spending that will surpass $1 trillion by 2025 (Goetzen 2021). This spending boom has been largely driven by the omnipresence of online advertisements. Advertising underpins many business models on the internet. As soon as web-based applications became mainstream, advertisers contributed to social media growth by allocating a growing proportion of their media budgets to online advertising (Knoll 2016; Okazaki and Taylor 2013), as they could reach consumers online at any time due to the extensive adoption of smartphones (Truong, McColl, and Kitchen 2010; Martins et al. 2019). Since messages that previously had to be delivered through traditional more resource-intensive channels such as print media were being transmitted through digital media (Lee and Cho 2020), the environmental impact of advertising in terms of carbon emissions should have decreased. However, that was not the case. On the one hand, digital advertising consumes large amounts of energy that are still mostly generated by fossil fuels. On the other hand, even though the virtualization of a significant part of the advertising industry could reduce advertising’s resource consumption, the number of online advertisements is also growing due to personalization and opportunities to engage with consumers more often (Andrews et al. 2016). Therefore, the increase in digital advertisement production 4 outweighs the resource efficiency gains of the virtualization of the industry. Five factors inherent to end-to-end online advertising drive the high energy consumption and carbon footprint estimates of online advertising (Pärssinen et al. 2018): i) online advertisements increase the time required to access the payload content, ii) the amount of downloaded data, iii) the number of active connections required, iv) the energy consumption of data centers, and v) any other active code related to advertising (e.g., tracking a user's browsing behavior). Reliable data on the energy consumption of online advertising are scarce. Simons and Pras (2010) estimated that online advertising was responsible for 3.4% of the average computer’s total energy consumption while browsing the web. In 2016, online advertising consumed an estimated 106 TWh of energy worldwide and generated 60 million tons of CO2 emissions, with a wide confidence interval between 12 and 159 Mt of CO2e (Pärssinen et al. 2018). Good-loop’s carbon calculator (2021), a platform for net-zero advertisements, estimates that the average online advertising campaign in the UK emits 5.4 tons of carbon dioxide. Reducing the carbon emissions of online advertising is necessary to lower advertising’s overall carbon footprint. Advertising’s role in driving the internet’s carbon emissions Although reducing online advertising traffic could improve the energy efficiency of the Internet, it would also hamper the most current business model of free internet services, based on advertising income (Pärssinen et al. 2018). The advertising industry indirectly drives and finances these free media content and communication services. Advertising indirectly contributes to the carbon emissions caused by these advertising-driven communication services and content. Regarding the carbon footprint of social media, Derudder (2021) provides an aggregate estimate based on Greenspector, a software company that measures the performance of digital mobile services. Greenspector estimated the carbon emissions of ten common social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook, Tik Tok, Reddit, Pinterest, Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Twitch, and YouTube) 5 generated during one minute of usage (i.e., scrolling the news feed). On average, these ten social media platforms, which are all partly or entirely financed by online advertising, caused 1.15 gEqCO2 (gram equivalent of CO2) every minute per user (Derudder 2021). Considering an average daily social media usage of 2 hours and 24 minutes per person in 2021, the carbon footprint of online advertising-powered social media adds up to 165.6 gEqCO2 per user and day (Derudder 2021). Even though the advertising industry is not directly responsible for the carbon emissions of social media platforms, it enables a business model that has a considerable carbon footprint. Advertising and aggregate consumption The question of whether advertising exacerbates environmental problems is inevitably connected to the debate on whether, at the macro-economic level, advertising increases overall consumption levels or only redistributes consumption without increasing it (Reekie and Allen 1983). The former would imply that advertising increases emissions and contributes to resource depletion, while the latter would only shift consumer behavior toward or away from more climate-harmful consumption behaviors. So far, this debate remains unsolved. Taylor (2013) called for more research on this subject because there was no conclusive evidence of an overall effect of advertising on aggregate consumption. Mixed empirical results on the macro-economic impact of advertising make it difficult to establish a direct relationship between advertising expenditure and the negative environmental impact caused by consumption-driven economic growth. On the one hand, several case studies and historical evidence at the macro level found limited effects of advertising concerning aggregate consumption (e.g., Broadbent 2008; Wilcox and Gangadharbatla 2006). On the other hand, many studies have confirmed the influence of advertising on aggregate consumption, investment, hours worked, economic activity (Brulle and Young 2007), and economic growth (Kopf, Torres, and Enomoto 2011; Molinari and Turino 2018). 6 Furthermore, advertising’s impact on climate change may be mediated by its relationship with materialism and consumerism. In line with Kasser (2016), we refer to ‘materialism’ as the priority individuals place on goals and values to accumulate possessions and wealth, often fueled by status or image motives. ‘Consumerism’ refers to the idea that the consumption of goods and services— including experiential consumption such as flying to a vacation destination—enhances well-being and happiness. Both materialism and consumerism motivate purchasing (Lee et al. 2021) and the creative sector of the advertising industry exploits this to encourage consumption (e.g., the “Your world awaits” campaign, launched by Air Canada in 2015 to promote flying using slogans including “The world is not an oyster, it's a 10,075 km pearl”). Studies showing that advertising can increase materialism (Chia 2010; Moldes and Ku 2020; Twenge and Kasser 2013; Opree et al. 2014) and consumerism (Frick et al. 2021) confirm the effectiveness of such strategies. There is also significant empirical support for a negative relationship between materialism and pro-environmental attitudes and behavior. Individuals who prioritize materialistic values and goals do not only consume more but also act in less environmentally friendly ways (Hurst et al. 2013; Kasser 2016; Unanue et al. 2016). Several recent studies have corroborated this relationship in China (Gu et al. 2020), Finland (Lundberg et al. 2019), the UK (Gatersleben et al. 2018), Spain (Diaz-Ruiz, Costa-Font, and Gil 2018), Sweden (Andersson and Nässén 2016) and the US (Segev, Shoham, and Gavish 2015). Thus, despite the literature not being conclusive on a direct macro-economic impact of advertising, there is evidence supporting an indirect relationship between advertising and climate change: Advertising exposure can increase materialism and consumerism which, in turn, disincentives climate-friendly behavior. Greenwashing Advertising can change consumer perceptions of the environmental impact of companies, products, and services. Green advertising—by portraying a company or brand as environmentally friendly— improves consumers’ corporate and brand attitudes and drives purchase intention (Hartmann and 7 Apaolaza-Ibáñez 2009). However, green advertising has frequently been utilized for greenwashing purposes. ‘Greenwashing’ refers to a product’s environmental communication that is false, deceptive, ambiguous, or that omits relevant product information (Kangun, Carlson, and Grove 1991). Table 2 summarizes the greenwashing studies discussed in this section. Advertising claims are often ambiguous, such as Body Shop’s “Nature’s way to beautiful” slogan. There are numerous examples of communication campaigns portraying companies and products deceptively as environmentally friendly (Bowen and Aragon-Correa 2014; Delmas and Burbano 2011), even when they are indeed environmentally harmful (Plec and Pettenger 2012). For instance, several airline campaigns (KLM, Lufthansa, and Ryanair’s “Lowest fares lowest emissions”) were banned for misleading claims about carbon emissions (Baazil 2022; Oakes 2022). Danone’s 2020 “Good for the planet” message for their Alpro almond drinks and Danish Crown’s 2021 “climate-controlled pigs” claims have been reported as cases of greenwashing, the first for misleading claims and the second for a self-accredited eco-label (Provenance 2022). The most polluting industries, such as oil companies, have widely and frequently utilized greenwashing (Megura and Gunderson 2022). Apart from greenwashing products and corporate images, the biggest carbon emitters have also downplayed the urgency of climate action. Together, the five major oil companies, ExxonMobil, Shell, ChevronTexaco, British Petroleum, and ConocoPhillips spent nearly $3.6 billion in advertising from 1986 to 2020 (Brulle, Aronczyk, and Carmichael 2020). Document-by-document textual content analysis and comparison of 187 climate change communications from 1989 to 2004 showed that ExxonMobil ‘advertorials’—paid, editorialstyle advertisements—in The New York Times routinely expressed doubt about climate change as real and human-caused (Supran and Oreskes 2017). In contrast, most peer-reviewed papers and internal reports authored by ExxonMobil’s scientists acknowledged that burning fossil fuels caused global warming. Paradoxically, ExxonMobil’s scientists’ academic publications advanced climate science, while the company launched advertising campaigns to promote doubt and mislead the public 8 (Supran and Oreskes 2020). Moreover, a big portion of oil companies’ advertising budgets has been spent on delaying climate legislation. Brulle, Aronczyk, and Carmichael (2020) showed that major oil companies’ advertising expenditure correlated with the levels of US congressional action and media attention to climate change. According to Brulle et al. (2020), these companies spent $315 million in 2010 alone, when the likelihood of binding climate legislation in the US was very high. These practices do not limit to advertising campaigns but have also been an integral part of many climate-harmful companies’ public relations (PR) programs. These PR activities aim to improve companies’ public image and avoid regulations and public pressure. PR strategies have also shaped the public debate on climate change. For example, think-tank information denying climate change increased exponentially from 1998 to 2013 (Beder 2002; Boussalis and Coan 2016). Industry PR has significantly shaped the common public narratives and framings of climate change (Schlichting 2013). The most common frame is the use of uncertainty and doubt to deny climate science and delay action by oil companies (Dunlap and McCright 2011; Jaworska 2018; Supran and Oreskes 2017). As a recent study on ExxonMobil’s strategies to shape public discourse on climate change shows, the company used selective environmental framings (i.e., emphasizing some terms and topics while avoiding others), and referred to scientific uncertainty with terms such as “climate risk” to downplay the reality and seriousness of climate change (Supran and Oreskes 2021). Climate change has also been framed as an individual responsibility to deflect industry’s responsibility (Kent 2009). In Europe, oil companies used a similar strategy by emphasizing uncertainty about climate change and downplaying its urgency, as an analysis of Total oil company’s communications from 1971 to 2021 has recently shown (Bonneuil, Choquet, and Franta 2021). A common feature of greenwashing communication is the use of vague and unspecific terms (de Freitas Netto et al. 2020). Instead of concrete technical terms and information (e.g., 100% biodegradable, organic agriculture, made from 80% recycled plastics, etc.), greenwashed advertisements use ambiguous and uninformative claims (e.g. green, eco-friendly, sustainable, 15 especially when individuals believe relevant others buy green products too (Nyborg, Howarth, and Brekke 2006). Since green consumption can signal a socially desirable pro-environmental identity (Sachdeva, Jordan, and Mazar 2015), green advertising should highlight the social benefits of conspicuous environmentally friendly behavior (Policarpo and Aguiar 2020). For instance, Timberland’s “Nature Needs Heroes” appeals to consumers’ feelings of pride and social approval by suggesting that buyers of its products are special because they contribute to sustainability for the benefit of all humans and nature. Visual cues typically used in green advertising such as nature images and green colors are also central to green persuasion (Hartmann and Apaolaza-Ibáñez 2009; Hartmann and Apaolaza-Ibáñez 2010). Advertisements employing scenes of nature can trigger emotional experiences similar to those felt when in contact with nature. New Zealand power company Meridian Energy’s 2005 "Water” and “Wind” TV commercials showing pristine nature scenery are excellent examples of how advertising can evoke such virtual nature experiences. Nature images can lead to more positive attitudinal effects than informative environmental claims (Hartmann and Apaolaza-Ibáñez 2008; Hartmann and Apaolaza-Ibáñez 2009; Matthes, Wonneberger, and Schmuck 2014), last longer in memory than text in advertisements (Rayner et al. 2001), attract consumers’ attention and improve advertising recall (Hartmann, Apaolaza, and Alija 2013). Moreover, research has shown that the use of green color alone is associated with nature and can induce consumers to perceive a lower environmental impact of brands, triggering positive advertising attitudes and purchase intentions (Pancer, McShane, and Noseworthy 2017). Contrary to gain-oriented appeals evoking positive feelings, prevention-focused messages in green advertising trigger negative feelings. The images of climate change-related degradation of nature—wildfires, floods, droughts, etc.—can evoke fear responses (Hartmann et al. 2014) and increase the sense of the importance of the issue (saliency) of climate change (O’Neill et al. 2013). For instance, Volvo’s 2021 “The Ultimate Safety Test” advertising campaign, informing about the 16 transition of the company to electric cars, shows in an impactful way and setting the effect of climate change on the degradation of glaciers. Advertising appeals that raise awareness of potential losses and negative consequences of climate change can increase pro-environmental intentions. The higher the threat level, the higher the fear, and thus the larger the increase in pro-environmental intentions (Hartmann et al. 2014; Pittman, Read, and Chen 2021). Also, appeals stressing present (vs. future) outcomes from environmental purchases trigger stronger consumer reactions if they focus on losses from climate change rather than gains from a reduced environmental impact (Homar and Knežević Cvelbar 2021). However, advertisers using environmental fear appeals should consider that combining fear activation with informative advertising claims on how to prevent the environmental threat may reduce the effectiveness of the fear appeals because it reduces the perceived severeness of the threat (Hartmann et al. 2014). Environmental threat appeals can also reduce consumers’ perceived self-efficacy, lowering the motivation to engage in pro-environmental behavior (O’Neill et al. 2013). Apart from triggering primitive emotions such as fear, advertising appeals stressing losses from climate change may also evoke negative social emotions such as guilt or shame. Activation of guilt and shame about environmentally unfriendly consumption choices can act as a mechanism that increases the perceived self-benefits of green purchases (Amatulli et al. 2019; Chang 2012). Consumer heuristics offer a further promising avenue, so far little explored, for green advertising practice and research. Examples of such heuristics are consumers associating happiness and pleasure with the consumption of organic food (Apaolaza et al. 2018), or the “green halo effect”, according to which consumers perceive green products as tasting or performing better than identical non-green alternatives (Sörqvist et al. 2015). While a lack of experience with green attributes can be one of the causes of the intention–behavior gap in green consumption (Biswas and Roy 2015), repeated exposure to advertising increases feelings of familiarity with the brand and product (Park and Lessig 1981). Consumers make green purchases more consistently when they are repeatedly 17 exposed to green advertising (Juhl, Fenger, and Thøgersen 2017), eventually adopting a low-carbon default in consumption as familiarity increases. Demarketing climate-harmful consumption Increasing consumption, even if less climate-harmful, might be at odds with climate-protective behavior because consumption is inevitably tied to resource use. Although marketing’s main objective is to increase the demand for goods or services, in certain situations it may be desirable to use marketing to reduce demand (Kotler 2011). ‘Demarketing’ refers to marketing actions aimed at reducing demand. Kotler and Levy’s (1971) three-category framework classifies demarketing as a means for companies to restrict the demand for their products to benefit the common good (general demarketing), to avoid attracting unwanted consumer segments (selective demarketing), and to signal a shortage or an inadequacy (ostensible demarketing). As a specific case of demarketing, ‘green demarketing’ (Armstrong Soule and Reich 2015) seeks to reduce the overall level of consumption and deviate consumer demand from products that are more environmentally harmful. For instance, Patagonia’s 2011 “Don’t buy this jacket” campaign highlighted consumers’ environmental footprint and urged them to consume less (Hwang et al. 2016). Yet, despite demarketing’s potential to reduce climate-harmful consumption, experimental findings suggest that green advertising claims outperform demarketing campaigns when it comes to influencing purchase decisions (Reich and Soule 2016). Green demarketing and green advertising are not substitutes but rather complementary strategies to encourage the adoption of sustainable consumption patterns. The behavioral changes promoted by green demarketing would be more attractive to consumers if these campaigns ensured symbolic benefits for those who reduce their climate-harmful consumption. Sekhon and Armstrong Soule (2020) found that a visible signal that communicates environmental motivations for reducing consumption of climate-harmful products is necessary to engage consumers because the act of foregoing consumption does not provide evident symbolic benefits to individuals 18 and ‘anticonsumers’ may even be regarded as having a lower socioeconomic status. Hence, demarketing campaigns will have to leverage ‘conspicuous anticonsumption’ (Sekhon and Armstrong Soule 2020) to be effective, which implies the use of visible signals that confer status without needing to make a purchase and restore the symbolic benefits that are often lost when foregoing consumption. Advertising, not least through evoking such symbolic benefits, can play an important part in green demarketing. What’s next for the industry Toward a climate-friendly paradigm shift An increasing number of advertising professionals are turning towards networks and associations to promote a climate protection agenda throughout the industry. To name a few, networks such as Creatives for Climate, Conscious Advertising, Clean Creatives, Purpose Disruptors, and Comms Declare connect industry professionals with a shared mission to make advertising part of the solution to climate change. The professionals gathered around these networks actively discourage climateharmful practices using their respective platforms. At a more institutional level, the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) is urging global marketers to champion the United Nations’ Race to Zero campaign—a coalition of leading net zero initiatives. The WFA has its initiative too, called Planet Pledge, which guides agencies on how to comply with net zero commitments. The advertising industry can and should adopt a proactive role in the fight against climate change. The most pressing issues in this regard are fighting greenwashing, leveraging low-carbon media campaigns, advertising carbon footprint information, and cutting ties with climate-harmful companies. 19 Fighting greenwashing Fighting greenwashing should be a priority for advertisers and regulatory bodies alike because, as previously discussed, greenwashing is pervasive and a significant barrier to the shift toward more climate-friendly consumption. The most prominent tools to combat greenwashing are certification systems, self-regulation, bans on advertising practices aimed at greenwashing, and interventions to increase consumers’ greenwashing literacy. However, each of these approaches has drawbacks, rendering the effective eradication of greenwashing difficult. Current certification systems provide quality standards such as environmental labels which can help consumers to verify the authenticity of green claims. However, the proliferation of non-official green labels and certificates, often using green advertising cues (e.g., green appeals, green colors, nature images, etc.), has decreased public confidence because they often do not represent credible standards (do Paço and Reis 2012). Advertisers should only use green labels that are backed by official regulations and controls. There is an urgent need for the advertising industry to self-regulate on greenwashing. Failing to do so will likely result in public authorities stepping in with further bans and more stringent regulations that could hinder the advertising industry’s transformative potential. Research on the regulatory aspects of green advertising is however still scarce and findings are ambiguous (Agarwal and Kumar 2020). Self-regulation of green advertising is further complicated by the complexities of self-regulating digital advertising (Dickinson-Delaporte et al. 2020; Rotfeld and Taylor 2009). Green advertising self-regulation should focus on green claim specificity. Claim specificity can improve credibility in green advertising and enhance advertising effectiveness (Ganz and Grimes 2018). Significant steps, proposals and research on greenwashing self-regulation should be an urgent priority. Government efforts to curtail pervasive greenwashing through green advertising regulation have rapidly evolved in recent decades to include bans targeted at greenwashing (de Freitas Netto et 20 al. 2020). Specifically, oil companies’ advertising campaigns are under scrutiny. For instance, New York City sued three major oil companies for allegedly using misleading advertising campaigns that failed to disclose the climate impact of fossil fuels (Gilmer and Van Voris 2021). Some European cities are already legislating to limit advertisements that contribute to greenwashing the fossil fuel industry (Neslen 2021). Environmental organizations like ClientEarth are also using legal action to demand tobacco-style health warnings on advertisements from oil companies (UK National Contact Point for the OECD 2020). Individuals are exerting pressure too by adhering to campaigns like the European Citizen’s Initiative (ECI) registered on June 16th, 2021, which proposes a ban on fossil fuel advertisements (ECI 2021). This initiative can turn into an EU law if it garners enough support. Advertising regulations stipulate that advertising should do no harm, enhance trust in the marketing system and hold ethical values (American Marketing Association 2015). However, practices like the systematic advertising of fossil fuels using positive environmental associations illustrates that authorities often fail to address greenwashing effectively. So far, clear guidelines on what makes a product “environmentally safe” are still mostly lacking (Delmas and Burbano 2011). In practice, monitoring of advertising fails as it requires specific technologies and high levels of costly audits (Jahn, Schramm, and Spiller 2005). Moreover, the persuasion effects of green advertising stem to a significant extent from cues such as the green color and nature images, and these are difficult to forbid in advertising. Limited, uncertain, and often non-enforced regulation makes greenwashing more difficult to eradicate (Delmas and Burbano 2011). As long as antigreenwashing efforts from governments remain uncoordinated and there are no clear guidelines of what represents an environmentally safe product, greenwashing will likely remain widespread, representing a barrier to reducing consumption emissions. A further promising approach consists in neutralizing its effects by educating consumers to spot greenwashing. Cognitive interventions can increase consumers’ greenwashing literacy so that they learn to recognize certain official standards and detect deceptive claims (Fernandes, Segev, and 21 Leopold 2020). The advertising industry can jointly finance educational communication campaigns like these to counteract the noxious effects of greenwashing still practiced by many of its members. Leveraging low-carbon media campaigns and advertising carbon footprint information Since the advertising industry works for its clients—who decide which campaigns to implement and how—,initiatives for greening the industry such as the abovementioned UK Advertising Association’s Ad Net Zero initiative to reach net-zero by 2030 (Advertising Association 2020) will only be feasible if they resonate with clients’ needs. But instead of being a limitation, clients’ needs can potentially leverage the low-carbon transition of the industry because those corporate clients will undergo a similar process of de-carbonization, likely also driven by end-consumers’ attitudes and motives concerning climate change. By curbing production emissions and choosing low-carbon media channels, advertising agencies can contribute to lowering their clients’ carbon footprint. Companies increasingly report carbon footprint information in their sustainability reports (either voluntarily or driven by legislation). Advertising clients will have significant incentives to demand low-carbon advertising campaigns because reporting carbon emission savings can potentially affect corporate image and client attitudes. As a prerequisite, advertising agencies need to adopt detailed carbon accounting methods to assess campaign-related carbon emissions. Providing this information to advertising clients should enable more climate-friendly advertising campaign choices, leveraging the low-carbon transition of the advertising industry. 22 Cutting ties with climate-harmful companies An increasing number of agencies and media companies refuse to produce and disseminate greenwashed fossil fuels advertisements, with executives likening this shift to the advertising industry’s move away from tobacco (Hsu 2021). Both tobacco and oil companies have long used advertising to mislead the public and delay legislative action (Boyle et al. 2020; Megura and Gunderson 2022; Plec and Pettenger 2012). Kaupa (2021) argues that, since major oil companies have used advertising to block regulatory change and to normalize a harmful commodity, current fossil fuel advertisements are as misleading as former tobacco advertising and, therefore, a ban on fossil fuel advertising would be the best regulatory solution. In the same vein, climate experts (Otto et al. 2020) suggest a ban on fossil fuel advertisements would constitute a social tipping point (i.e., an intervention that can activate contagious processes of rapidly spreading technologies, behaviors, social norms, and structural reorganization) to reduce carbon emissions. However, recent initiatives to ban fossil fuel advertisements are not widespread, and it is yet unclear whether this tendency will spread to media outlets. To date, only a few media outlets, such as The Guardian and the British Medical Journal in the UK, and the Swedish publications Dagens Nyheter and Dagens ETC, have imposed an outright ban on fossil fuel advertisements (Hsu 2021). Although a ban on fossil fuel advertisements seems still politically challenging, many agencies are already refusing to work with carbon-intensive companies in general, and oil companies in particular. In the US, more than 130 agencies and 400 professionals have joined the Clean Creatives initiative (https://cleancreatives.org/) and pledged to decline future contracts with the fossil fuel industry. Recently, the Great Reset campaign in the UK (https://greatreset.com/) encouraged its members to take responsibility for the advertisements they produce. Similarly, many communication professionals in Australia have joined the CommsDeclare initiative (https://commsdeclare.org/) and committed not to work for the fossil fuel industry. CommsDeclare also collaborated with Clean Creatives on the F-list Report (2021), which exposes advertising and PR companies that keep 23 working with the fossil fuel industry. This report reveals that some of the biggest advertising companies still sign contracts with oil companies. Despite raising awareness in the broader creative community, mainly in small agencies though, big advertising firms are stepping away from oil companies at a slower pace (Hsu 2021). Agencies interested in cutting ties with climate-harmful companies can publish Client Disclosure Reports (e.g., Futerra 2022) detailing the percentage of their annual turnover that comes from high-carbon clients. Agencies that have decided to step away from oil companies before a—rather distant—ban is enacted by law foresee that working with these clients will be culturally less acceptable in the future (Hsu 2021). In the short term, agencies will have to position themselves because remaining ambivalent will become more difficult as the climate crisis worsens. Agencies heavily reliant on the revenue from highly polluting clients will need to keep working with them, dealing with accusations of contributing to a high-carbon lifestyle. Conversely, agencies wanting to spur cultural change will have to diversify their client portfolio, which will imply renouncing lucrative contracts. The industry will not be able to play both sides credibly because the entire supply chain, down to the individual consumer, is increasingly becoming aware of the advertising industry’s ambivalent role in the climate crisis. What’s next for advertising research Defining and operationalizing concepts and constructs Advertising research can and should play a pivotal role in lowering the carbon footprint of the advertising industry and activity, as well as of society as a whole (Table 4 provides an overview of future research avenues). Concrete construct definitions are a precondition for adequate future research. However, current definitions of many concepts and constructs related to sustainable or green advertising are still vague due to changes in definitions and operationalizations over time and between studies (e.g., green/sustainable advertising, greenwashing, etc.). Constant changes undermine the comparability of empirical findings and challenge the integration of insights into 24 existing theory. Future research needs to address and unify green advertising terminology based on recent theoretical developments on the definition and operationalization of concepts and constructs (e.g., Bergkvist and Eisend 2022; Bergkvist and Eisend 2021; Bergkvist and Taylor 2022). Assessing the impact of advertising on climate change Except for some notable exceptions (e.g., Pärssinen et al. 2018), reliable data are lacking on the direct and indirect carbon emissions generated by the advertising industry. Currently, professionals from the advertising industry themselves elaborate most reports about the environmental impact of advertising (Timperley 2021). For example, an organization of industry insiders advocating for making advertising greener released the ‘Advertised emissions’ report during COP26 2021 in Glasgow, claiming that the uplift in sales generated by advertising in 2019 in the UK accounted for over 186 million tons of CO2, which constitutes an increase of 28% to the annual carbon footprint of every UK citizen (Purpose Disruptors 2021). However, the report was not subject to peer-review and hence will hardly access academic debates. Advertising scholars need to start by collecting and sharing data on the industry’s direct, indirect and consumer behavior-mediated impact on climate change. 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Carlson, Grove, and Kangun (1993); Chan (2000); Davis (1993); Kangun and Polonsky (1995); Hartmann and Apaolaza-Ibáñez (2009); Scammon and Mayer (1995). Promotionfocused appeals Studies testing gain-oriented green advertising have mainly focused on three strategies: First, anticipating a positive affect from helping the environment (i.e. warm glow) can motivate proenvironmental action. Second, consumers’ willingness to signal a socially desirable identity can be exploited by linking green consumption to social approval. Third, advertisements using the green color or showing nature scenes activate an environmental schema for the consumer leading to positive emotional experiences that can encourage green consumption. Bhatnagar and McKay-Nesbitt (2016); Hartmann and Apaolaza-Ibáñez (2008, 2009, 2010, 2012); Hartmann et al. (2017); Matthes, Wonneberger, and Schmuck (2014); Mazar and Zhong (2010); Nyborg, Howarth, and Brekke (2006); Pancer, McShane, and Noseworthy (2017); Policarpo and Aguiar (2020); Sachdeva, Jordan, and Mazar (2015). Preventionfocused emotional appeals Green advertising strategies based on negative emotions can effectively influence consumers. They may act pro-environmentally to avoid feelings of guilt and shame. Fear activation can also increase pro-environmental intentions. Climate change-related images activate fear by highlighting the severity of nature degradation and increasing the level of perceived threat. Amatulli et al. (2019); Chang (2012); Hartmann et al. (2014); Homar and Knežević Cvelbar (2021); O’Neill et al. (2013); Pittman, Read, and Chen (2021). Heuristics Green advertising can exploit consumer heuristics, that is, mental shortcuts which simplify decisions. For instance, the ‘green halo effect’ caused by green labels can improve perceptions of product performance even in aspects unrelated to sustainability. Another heuristic, familiarity bias, leads to consumers more consistently making green purchases when repeatedly exposed to green advertising. Apaolaza et al. (2018); Juhl, Fenger, and Thøgersen (2017); Park and Lessig (1981); Sörqvist et al. (2015). 48 Table 4. Further research agenda Topic What we know Research gap Further research avenues Construct definitions The current literature provides diverse definitions and construct operationalizations concerning green advertising. Vague definitions of concepts and constructs concerning sustainable advertising (e.g., green/sustainable advertising, greenwashing, etc.). Unified definitions and operationalizations based on recent theoretical developments in the definition and operationalization of concepts and constructs. Advertising’s carbon footprint Activist and industrybased studies have intended to quantify advertising’s carbon emissions. Existing data are scarce, industry-sourced, and not backed by systematic research. The carbon footprint of advertising campaigns (advertising management, production, media choice). Advertising’s indirect role in the internet’s carbon footprint Advertising enables online business models. Internet activity causes carbon emissions. Scarce data and conceptual development. Advertising’s role in enabling advertising-driven online business models that have a significant carbon footprint (e.g., social networks). Advertisings’ effect on aggregate consumption Some studies support that advertising stimulates consumption. Ongoing discussion on whether advertising drives aggregate consumption, for instance through materialism and consumerism. The extent to which advertising increases aggregate consumption and boosts economic activity. The magnitude of the additional carbon emissions attributable to advertising. Green advertising research’s climate change focus Green advertising research has addressed the effects of advertising claims on proenvironmental consumer behavior. The focus of extant green advertising research is on environmentally friendly consumption in general. Lack of specific theoretical underpinnings on how to mitigate climate change. Development and empirical test of specific theoretical models of the relationship between green advertising claims and climatefriendly (consumption) behavior. Research focus on carbon-intensive systemic behaviors Isolated studies have assessed advertising effects on carbonintensive behavior such as energy choice. Existing research focuses on more easily influenceable behaviors while avoiding hardto-manipulate, carbon-intensive systemic behaviors (e.g. mobility and energy). Extend green advertising research scope to the promotion of lowcarbon alternatives to systemic carbon-intensive products, services, and behaviors (e.g., adoption of green electricity at home, public transport, etc.). Demarketing climate harmful behavior Research recognizes the need to decrease the consumption of some goods under certain circumstances and has revealed related mechanisms. Scarce research on green demarketing and on how to restore the symbolic benefits that are lost when foregoing consumption. Lack of a climate change focus. Development and empirical test of specific theoretical models focused on discouraging climate harmful behavior (e.g., flying, individual transport, meat consumption, etc.). Psychological and sociological processes involved in climate-related persuasion Several mediating and moderating processes have been revealed for green advertising effects. Lack of knowledge on mediating processes explaining specific climate-related advertising effects. Theoretical proposition and empirical test of specific psychological and sociological processes involved in climate protective behavior (e.g., mediating variables social emotions pride, shame, and guilt, climate anxiety, norm activation, socialand self-identity; personality traits and situational moderators). Greenfluencers Extant research has addressed the effects of influencer traits. Lack of research on the effects of greenfluencers on climaterelevant (consumer) behavior. Impact of greenfluencers on consumer’s carbon footprint. Effects of greenfluencer traits and 49 Greenfluencer communication has been assessed by content analysis. appeals. Identification of mediating variables to explain greenfluencer persuasion processes. Systemic change to promote climate protection Most theories of social change focus on individual responsibility to mitigate climate change. Scarce interdisciplinary research on the systemic impacts of advertising on how consumer options are structured by governments, infrastructures, and economic institutions. A more holistic approach to the role of advertising in sustaining a society-wide culture and narrative that promotes climate protection.