Political Printing's Big Carbon Footprint?
-- Graphic Arts Online, 7/18/2008 10:21:00 AM
Both presidential campaigns are touting their efforts to “green” their upcoming
conventions, but neither is addressing the carbon footprint of their political advertising, which includes a significant amount of print, reports the Institute for Sustainable Communications. TNS Media Intelligence/Campaign Analysis Group says the McCain and Obama campaigns are already spending between $250,000 to $300,000 per day on advertising. However, their campaign’s Websites fail to indicate how their ad spending is offset with carbon credits or handled in an environmentally responsible way.
“While spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a day, each campaign has the opportunity to determine the carbon footprint of their advertising and set an example on the issue of climate change,” says Don Carli, senior research fellow at the institute and GAM's sustainability editor.
PQ Media expects political ad spending to climb 43% to an all-time high of $4.5 billion during the 2008 election cycle with services such as direct mail, public relations, promotion and event marketing expected to be $1.48 billion—almost a third of the total. Putting that spend in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and costs for offsetting them, a recent Pitney Bowes study determined that mail distributed by the USPS results in the emission of about 20 grams of CO2 equivalent emissions per letter delivered.
“Leading brands such as Time Inc., Timberland and Patagonia are examining the carbon footprint of advertising media. Why not political advertisers?” asks Carli, who is also the conference chair of the SustainCommWorld – The Green Media Show, Oct. 1-2 in Boston.
“Neither print nor digital media supply chains are sustainable as currently configured,” adds Carli, “but they can be if advertisers make identifying and reducing the carbon footprint of advertising a priority.”
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