Carbon Accountability Comes to B2B Marketing

Professional services marketers – from law and consulting firms to accounting, engineering, agency, healthcare, and tech providers – are facing a new mandate in sustainability. The EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) will soon require unprecedented transparency into Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions, extending to thousands of mid-sized companies’ FY2025 reports. That means marketing-related activities are explicitly in scope, from energy-hungry programmatic ad buys to the carbon cost of trade-show travel and swag.

Finance teams and regulators are no longer satisfied with anecdotes about “going green” – they want hard numbers on the CO₂ footprint of every campaign. In this article, we’ll explore how B2B marketers in professional services can measure (quantify) and manage (cut) the carbon footprint of their marketing programs to not only comply with CSRD’s next wave of disclosures, but to create a competitive advantage in the process.

Why Marketing’s Emissions Are Now Under the Microscope

For years, sustainability reporting largely bypassed the marketing department. No longer. Under CSRD, companies must detail environmental impacts across their operations and value chain – including the often-overlooked footprint of marketing. Scope 3 emissions (indirect emissions from suppliers and value chain activities) are particularly challenging and comprehensive. Marketing falls largely in Scope 3: it involves purchased goods and services (e.g. printing, promotional items), business travel (events and meetings), and use of external digital infrastructure (ads, websites, emails). Legal commentators note that marketing teams will need to report these emissions in far greater detail than ever before. In short, marketing’s carbon output is now everyone’s business, from the CFO to prospective clients evaluating your RFP responses.

The carbon impact of marketing is much larger than many realize. Recent research claims that public relations and digital marketing activities produce more CO₂ worldwide than the entire aviation industry. Data centres powering websites, ad platforms, social media, and other online marketing channels account for about 2.5% of global carbon emissions – more than aviation’s 2.1%. Every impression and email has a hidden energy cost: a single online ad campaign delivering 1 million impressions can emit as much carbon as a round-trip flight from Boston to London. And according to one analysis, if every adult in the UK sent one fewer “thank you” email per day, it would save 16,433 tonnes of CO₂ a year – the equivalent of over 80,000 short-haul flights. Clearly, digital does not mean carbon-neutral.

Traditional in-person marketing carries its own carbon burdens. Flying a team to a conference, shipping boxes of brochures or client gifts, manufacturing branded swag – all generate emissions that now count toward your organization’s total footprint. Under CSRD’s double materiality principle, companies must disclose not only how climate change affects them, but also how their activities (like marketing) affect the climate. Professional services firms pride themselves on sector-specific marketing strategies; now, sustainability is a new strategic dimension across sectors. Whether you’re a law firm or a tech consultancy, demonstrating climate accountability in marketing is fast becoming part of your brand’s value proposition.

Importantly, this scrutiny isn’t just coming from regulators – it’s also client-driven. RFPs and client questionnaires increasingly probe vendors’ sustainability practices. Companies issuing RFPs are now asking pointed questions such as: “Do you track your greenhouse gas emissions, including Scope 3?” and “What is your sustainability policy and leadership structure?”. In fact, even when not explicitly asked, many firms are voluntarily providing sustainability data in proposals to stand out. Clients are looking for partners who will support their own ESG goals. As one analysis noted, as much as 95% of a large enterprise’s emissions come from its supply chain (vendors and partners); thus vendors who can show real emissions reduction and sustainable practices are far more attractive than those lagging behind. In professional services, where relationships and trust are paramount, being an early mover in carbon-transparent marketing can enhance your credibility. Forward-thinking firms are already reframing how they deliver value – moving from a traditional vendor role to that of a genuine partner in clients’ long-term success. Sustainability is now part of that “lasting value” story.

Quantifying Marketing’s Carbon Footprint: Tools and Techniques

Before you can reduce your marketing carbon footprint, you have to measure it. This is a fundamental challenge, as few marketing dashboards currently log kilowatt-hours or kilograms of CO₂. B2B marketers often find themselves in “data-poor” territory when it comes to emissions, despite otherwise data-rich campaign analytics. The task ahead is to extend your measurement toolkit to capture energy and carbon metrics for marketing activities. What exactly should you measure? Start by mapping out the emission sources of your marketing programs, which typically include:

• Digital marketing emissions: Every digital touchpoint has an energy cost. This includes the electricity used by data centers and content delivery networks (CDNs) to serve your website pages, videos, and display ads, as well as the end-user energy to view content. For example, the energy required to run programmatic advertising (the servers handling real-time bidding, ad exchanges, targeting data, etc.) contributes an estimated 2% of the internet’s total carbon emissions. One adtech startup found about 110kg of CO₂ are emitted per 100,000 ad impressions served – roughly 1.1 kg CO₂ per thousand impressions. Similarly, sending emails has a footprint: an email with large attachments or images will consume more server energy and network bandwidth than a plain-text message. An email marketing platform, Brevo, recently revealed a feature that reports the carbon footprint of email campaigns to its users, calculating factors like the email’s size (KB of data transmitted) and the electricity (and thus CO₂) used per transmission. These tools reinforce that even “low touch” digital activities add up at scale.

• Physical materials and swag: Printed brochures, direct mail, branded merchandise (pens, notebooks, apparel, etc.) all have embodied carbon from manufacturing and materials. Under CSRD, these fall under Scope 3 “purchased goods.” Marketers should track the quantities and types of materials and, where possible, estimate their carbon impact (many suppliers can provide carbon info per unit, or you can use general emissions factors for paper, plastic, etc.). For instance, if you order 1,000 conference tote bags, what is the CO₂ from producing those cotton or nylon bags, and shipping them? New software can assist here as well – managing a centralized inventory of promotional products can enable better tracking. In fact, marketers who centralize all promo and print through a single platform gain greater transparency into their supply chain and easier CSRD reporting. Understanding where items are produced, the materials used, and how they’re transported is key to quantification.

• Travel and events: Business travel (flights, car miles, hotel stays) for marketing roadshows, client meetings, or sponsorship events contributes to Scope 3 emissions (often categorized under business travel or employee commuting). These are typically measured by distance and transport mode – e.g. a flight’s CO₂ can be calculated per passenger-kilometer. If your firm uses a corporate travel agency or tool, coordinate to get emissions reports for trips. Event-related emissions can also include on-site energy use (venue electricity, etc.) and even attendee travel if you’re hosting a large conference. While you may not need to track every attendee, focus on what your team and your materials are responsible for.

Quantifying all this may sound daunting. Indeed, CSRD’s detailed standards entail up to 1,100 data points for sustainability reporting, and many companies feel overwhelmed by the data collection required. The good news is that a wave of carbon accounting tools is rising to meet the challenge. Over the past months, searches for terms like “CSRD reporting tool” and “marketing emissions calculator” have spiked, and a range of software vendors have rolled out solutions tailored to measuring carbon footprints. Many of these tools are positioning carbon measurement as a competitive differentiator for early adopters.

Some leading platforms for carbon measurement and reporting include:

• Dedicated carbon accounting software (often enterprise-wide): For example, Normative (a carbon accounting SaaS) helps track greenhouse gas emissions across operations and recently added a module specifically to help clients meet CSRD standards. Normative provides expert guidance alongside its software, noting that for most companies carbon accounting is new and external help can accelerate the process. Another major player, SAP’s Green Ledger, brings a finance-grade approach to carbon data by recording CO₂ emissions in a ledger format similar to financial accounting – reflecting the push to treat carbon metrics with the rigor of financial metrics.

• ESG reporting platforms with CSRD modules: Products like Sweep, Greenly, Watershed, Position Green, Emitwise, and Coolset are geared toward simplifying compliance with frameworks such as CSRD and the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS). These platforms allow consolidation of data from various departments (including marketing) and automate many aspects of emissions calculation. For example, Coolset and Sweep – both highlighted in recent “top CSRD software” roundups – enable Scopes 1–3 emissions measurement, automated audit-ready reports, and even integrations to pull data from your existing systems. They often include libraries of emissions factors (e.g. kg CO₂ per kWh of electricity, or per dollar spent on cloud services) so that marketing teams can input activity data (like ad spend or number of emails sent) and get back estimated emissions.

• Ad tech and martech add-ons: Recognizing the niche need, some marketing technology vendors have created carbon-tracking capabilities within their tools. We saw Brevo’s email carbon report as one example. In advertising, companies like Good-Loop and Scope3 offer solutions to embed carbon metrics into digital ad delivery. Good-Loop’s “Green Ad Tag” can be appended to your online ads to automatically measure the energy used and emissions generated by that campaign. In one case study, Good-Loop analyzed 9 billion impressions from a retailer’s Q1 ads and found that ads that never met viewability standards - i.e. essentially wasted impressions - were responsible for 42% of the campaign’s total GHG emissions. This highlights how better ad quality control can directly cut carbon waste. Scope3, founded by adtech veteran Brian O’Kelley, similarly reports grams of CO₂ per impression or per dollar of ad spend and works with programmatic platforms to optimize for lower emissions paths. The World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) and other industry bodies are also developing standards for measuring media carbon footprints, aiming for a consistent framework by which all campaigns can be judged.

In practice, quantifying your marketing footprint will require cross-functional effort. Marketers should partner with sustainability or ESG teams (who might already be using some of the software above) to identify what data to gather. For example, you might need to get IT to provide server logs or cloud usage stats for your web properties, ask your ad agency for impression carbon data, or get suppliers to report the footprints of deliverables. This is where having the right software helps centralize and verify the data. Notably, more than half of finance executives (55%) admitted recently that they still rely on manual spreadsheets for ESG data tracking. Moving to an integrated platform not only makes reporting easier and more accurate, it also ensures that marketing’s emissions are tracked with the same discipline as financial metrics – a key goal of CSRD. As Gartner analysts have pointed out, companies are now aligning climate-related issues with financial planning, bringing non-financial data “to the state of precision of financial data”. Marketing teams should be prepared to provide precise carbon data in the same way they provide campaign ROI figures.

Tip: Start measuring now, even if estimates are rough. The act of measurement often reveals quick fixes. As the saying goes, “what gets measured gets managed.” You might begin by calculating the carbon per webinar or per thousand ad impressions and sharing this internally. Early adopters in professional services have embedded lightweight trackers in their campaigns to surface per-campaign kg of CO₂e – giving them a head start on finding hotspots and setting reduction targets. By quantifying and socializing these metrics, you set the stage for targeted improvements.

Quick Wins: Reducing Carbon in Marketing (Short-Term Tactics)

With initial measurements in hand (or at least a clear idea of where your biggest marketing emissions come from), you can turn to cutting carbon footprint in the near term. Fortunately, many carbon-reducing actions also yield cost savings or efficiency gains – a win-win for the marketing budget and the planet. Here are several short-term strategies to implement immediately:

Streamline digital content and assets

Audit your online content for carbon “heavy hitters.” Large images, autoplaying videos, and bloated web pages not only slow down user experience but also consume more energy to transmit and load. Optimize these assets by compressing images, using modern efficient file formats, and disabling autoplay on videos unless necessary.

Simplifying your website’s design (reducing unnecessary scripts or oversized media) can significantly cut its energy use. Every byte matters: a lighter webpage means less data for servers to serve and networks to carry. Similarly, consider the frequency of content refreshes – do you need that many high-res images cycling on your homepage, or can you achieve the same engagement with a simpler approach? Some companies have even introduced “low-carbon” versions of webpages for users on slow connections, which incidentally saves energy too. These optimizations echo a broader trend in B2B marketing to combine efficiency with experience. By maximizing technical efficiency (lighter, faster-loading content) without sacrificing user experience, you not only reduce emissions but also meet audiences’ demand for quick, accessible content.

Green your email marketing

While email is a relatively low-carbon channel per message, the volume and file size of emails can make a difference at scale. Simple steps can yield quick gains. Trim your mailing lists to remove unengaged contacts – sending fewer emails to people who don’t read them saves energy and improves your sender reputation. (This aligns with email best practices in general, where segmenting and cleaning lists boost performance.) Avoid large attachments in emails; instead, host files on your site or cloud storage and link to them. An attached PDF downloaded thousands of times from inboxes is far less efficient than a single download from a server. Use fewer images or GIFs in emails unless they add significant value – every embedded image makes the email heavier in kilobytes. One marketing operations team calculated that by reducing the average size of their newsletter and culling 15% of inactive subscribers, they cut the newsletter’s monthly carbon emissions nearly in half.

Another tip: send only when necessary. “Batch-and-blast” daily emails might generate diminishing returns and unnecessary carbon. If you can consolidate announcements or personalize the timing to users, you’ll send fewer total emails. In short, quality over quantity in email marketing yields carbon savings. (As a side benefit, these steps also tend to improve open rates and click-through, since your audience is more targeted and emails load faster.)

Use efficient channels and targeting in advertising

Every ad impression has a carbon cost, so making sure your ads are seen by real, relevant people is key. This improves marketing ROI and cuts waste. First, reduce wasted impressions. Studies show up to 70% of programmatic ad spend is wasted on ads never seen by a human (due to bots, below-the-fold placements, etc.). That means energy was spent serving those ads for no benefit. Work with your media partners to tighten frequency caps, use allow-lists of quality publishers, and avoid fraud-prone inventory. By cutting off the bottom tier of low-value impressions, you not only trim budget waste but also the associated emissions.

Second, optimize ad formats and delivery. If a simpler ad format performs just as well, it will generally have a smaller file size (and thus less energy to deliver) than a complex animation or video. Right-sizing video ads is another tactic – e.g., a 15-second video instead of 60 seconds, or using lower resolution where high-def isn’t necessary – to save on data transmitted.

Third, leverage emerging tools to route your buys through greener pathways. Some DSPs (demand-side platforms) and networks are beginning to offer carbon reporting and even the ability to favor lower-carbon supply paths (for instance, choosing a publisher direct deal over an exchange with multiple hops). Use these features if available. Prioritize high-performing, lower-carbon channels: For example, if you discover that one webinar platform uses renewable-powered data centers whereas another doesn’t, or one social network has a lighter carbon footprint per impression, it could influence where you concentrate spend.

Over time, we may see “carbon KPIs” like CO₂ per thousand impressions alongside CPM and CPL in our dashboards. Starting to optimize for them now will put you ahead of the curve.

Optimize events and business travel

In-person events are often a significant source of marketing emissions, but there are quick optimizations you can apply. One immediate win is to replace some physical events with virtual or hybrid events. During the pandemic, professional services firms learned to host client conferences and seminars via platforms like Microsoft Teams, Zoom, or ON24 – and many of those virtual events proved surprisingly effective (not to mention far cheaper).

There’s no need to revert fully to old habits. Identify which engagements truly require face-to-face interaction and which could be just as impactful as webinars or virtual roundtables. Modern tools in your stack can help here – for example, Microsoft Teams now has built-in webinar and town hall features, meaning you might not even need a separate platform. Leveraging these can eliminate the travel and logistics emissions altogether for certain events, while still generating leads and networking (and save costs on platforms too).

For events that do go ahead in person, focus on smart planning to minimize carbon: choose event locations central to many attendees (reducing long flights), favor venues with strong sustainability policies (renewable energy, recycling, etc.), and consider train travel for regional events instead of short flights. Consolidate trips – if your team is flying abroad for a conference, piggyback client meetings in that same trip rather than separate flights later.

Examine your swag and booth materials: can you use reusable, modular booth designs rather than printing new banners each time? Can giveaways be more eco-friendly (e.g. bamboo or recycled materials, or even digital giveaways like e-gift cards or charity donations in attendees’ names)? Many companies are indeed rethinking trade show swag to emphasize quality and sustainability over quantity – not only to reduce emissions, but also because it resonates better with audiences in 2025 who are skeptical of frivolous branded tchotchkes. In short, make your events leaner and greener: less shipping, less flying, less waste. You’ll likely save money (fewer tchotchkes = fewer dollars) and still achieve your marketing goals.

Engage suppliers and partners on sustainability

Marketing relies on a host of third-party suppliers – print vendors, creative agencies, media partners, promotional product manufacturers, etc. Open the conversation with these partners about reducing emissions. Often, they will have suggestions ready (as they are navigating their own CSRD or client demands). For instance, your print supplier might offer a recyclable paper stock or a waterless printing process that cuts emissions.

Your media agency might be able to shift some buys to publishers known for using green data centers. Include sustainability criteria in your procurement: when evaluating a new vendor, ask about their environmental policies or if they have carbon-neutral options. Some professional services firms are even adding clauses in marketing RFPs requiring vendors to provide emissions data or to commit to emissions reductions during the contract.

By making sustainability a factor in vendor selection and briefs, you encourage innovation across your supply chain. This is a quick win in that it doesn’t always require you to change your own operations – you’re leveraging market pressure. Many vendors will step up with solutions if they know it could win or retain your business. And remember, under CSRD, emissions from your suppliers count in your Scope 3: helping suppliers improve directly helps your compliance and totals.

Instill a carbon-aware culture in the marketing team

A lot of quick wins come from individual choices and awareness. Educate your team about the findings of your carbon audit – for example, share that “One HTML email newsletter to 100k contacts produces X kg of CO₂” or “Our annual client summit last year emitted Y tonnes CO₂ – this year our goal is to cut that in half.” When people see the link between their day-to-day work and environmental impact quantified, it often sparks ideas.

You might even create a simple “CO₂ checklist” that campaign planners use: e.g., have we minimized file sizes? Is this trip necessary or could it be virtual? Can we source this promo item locally? Making this part of the planning process ensures carbon reduction isn’t an afterthought. Some organizations introduce friendly competition or incentives – for example, recognizing the campaign team that achieves the lowest carbon footprint (while meeting its targets) or challenging each team to reduce emissions by, say, 10% quarter over quarter. Such internal initiatives can be motivational and immediately productive.

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These short-term actions are about acting quickly and pragmatically. They don’t typically require major budget approval or structural change – just smarter execution of what you’re already doing. B2B marketers need to strike the right balance between fast action and careful planning. The steps above are the “fast action” piece: they help you rack up early wins and build momentum. Next, we turn to the longer-term, strategic changes that will sustain and amplify these gains.

Long-Term Strategies: Embedding Sustainability into Marketing Programs

Quick wins are crucial, but to truly stay ahead of the CSRD wave (and future sustainability demands), marketing leaders should also pursue long-term strategies that bake carbon reduction and reporting into the fabric of their marketing operations. Think of this as moving from one-off fixes to an enduring transformation – one that not only ensures compliance in 2025, but keeps your firm competitive and credible through 2030 and beyond. Here are key long-term approaches:

Set a marketing carbon reduction roadmap and targets

Work with your organization’s sustainability team to define specific targets for marketing-related emissions. This might mean aligning with company-wide science-based targets (e.g. “reduce Scope 3 emissions 30% by 2030”), and then breaking down what marketing’s share should be. For example, you could set a goal to achieve net-zero emissions for all marketing operations by 2030, in line with industry initiatives like Ad Net Zero which aim for net-zero advertising emissions by 2030.

Ad Net Zero’s global action plan, launched in the UK and now spreading internationally, underscores that the advertising and marketing industry is committing to eliminate its carbon footprint on a tight timeline. By setting your own interim milestones (say, 50% reduction by 2027 for marketing emissions), you create a framework for continuous improvement. These targets should be public if possible – public commitments drive internal accountability and demonstrate to stakeholders that you’re serious (and help avoid accusations of greenwashing, especially if you back them up with data). Once targets are set, integrate them into your marketing KPIs dashboard. Progressive marketing teams are beginning to track “CO₂ per campaign” or “emissions per $1k of marketing spend” as core metrics, alongside lead volume and conversion rates. This elevates sustainability to a first-class measure of success.

Incorporate carbon metrics into campaign planning and ROI analysis

Over the long term, marketers will need to treat carbon like a cost – something to be minimized while still achieving objectives. Start practicing this now. For each major campaign, have your team project the expected carbon footprint (using the tools and data you’ve been developing) and weigh it in strategic decisions. For instance, if a certain campaign approach would generate 50 tons of CO₂ and an alternative plan might generate 20 tons for a slightly lower reach, you can make an informed call on whether the extra emissions are justified by the business outcome. You might discover, as many have, that more carbon-intensive tactics often have diminishing returns in business terms too – so cutting carbon aligns with cutting wasteful spend.

Some firms are already evaluating marketing ROI in a new light: not just cost per lead, but carbon per lead. This kind of dual analysis encourages innovative thinking. Perhaps a smaller, highly targeted account-based marketing (ABM) effort delivered via digital channels can replace a mass-market campaign that involved printing and postage – yielding a similar revenue outcome with a fraction of the carbon. When you do invest in high-carbon activities (say, a flagship conference), treat carbon as part of the “budget” that must be justified by the results. This approach will position your team well for the future, when carbon accounting may be as routine as financial accounting. Gartner’s vision of climate data attaining “financial data” precision and importance is already unfolding, and marketing cannot be an exception.

Foster innovation in low-carbon marketing tactics

Embracing sustainability can spur creative new ways to engage your audience. Professional services marketing, in particular, can lean more on intellectual capital and digital thought leadership, which typically have a lighter environmental footprint than old-school tactics. For example, instead of flying multiple executives around for in-person client seminars, a firm could invest in a polished webinar series or a podcast – content that provides value with negligible emissions. Or consider leveraging technologies like AI and data analytics to optimize marketing mix and reduce waste. AI can help analyze which marketing activities yield the highest impact relative to their cost (financial and carbon) and suggest reallocations. (A trivial example: if half of your social posts generate little engagement, you’re wasting the energy that went into producing and distributing them; AI-driven content strategy might help you post less but more effectively, cutting digital waste.)

Another area of innovation is sustainable creative. We’re seeing the rise of campaigns that are not only carbon-light but also carbon-themed in a genuine way – e.g., interactive online tools that educate clients on sustainability, or community-building initiatives that double as low-carbon marketing because they rely on networks and knowledge rather than physical assets. Early adopters who experiment with such approaches will shape best practices for the industry. This aligns with the notion that marketing is shifting to more holistic, customer-centric experiences orchestrated across channels – you can orchestrate those experiences with sustainability in mind at each touchpoint. The result could be a marketing engine that is both highly effective and inherently low-carbon.

Build sustainability into supplier and partner relationships (long-term)

Earlier we mentioned engaging vendors in the short run. In the long run, you should formalize this into your procurement and partnership processes. Update your marketing supplier RFPs and contracts to include sustainability clauses. For example, you might require agencies to calculate the carbon footprint of any campaign they execute for you and include it in their report. Or mandate that event production vendors use a certain percentage of sustainable materials.

Over time, as you vet new partners, give preference to those with strong sustainability credentials. This not only reduces your indirect emissions, but also future-proofs your supply chain. The companies you partner with will themselves fall under pressure to comply with regulations and client demands (just as you are). By aligning with sustainable partners now, you reduce the risk of a scramble later if a key vendor falls short of new standards. Moreover, deeper collaboration can lead to co-innovation: perhaps you and your event agency co-develop a new approach to hybrid conferences that becomes a market differentiator. When sustainability is a shared goal, it strengthens partnerships – reflecting a broader shift in professional services toward genuine, value-based partnerships instead of transactional relationships.

Communicate and leverage your sustainability progress

One long-term benefit of quantifying and reducing your marketing footprint is being able to tell a credible sustainability story to the market. Professional services firms increasingly include a section on sustainability in proposals and marketing collateral – but savvy clients can sniff out empty platitudes. By having real data (“we cut our event emissions by 40% in two years by doing X and Y”) and clear commitments (“we’ve committed to science-based targets covering our marketing operations”), your marketing team can present a credible sustainability narrative. This can influence RFP outcomes (many procurement departments assign points for sustainability) and enhance your brand reputation overall. However, a caution: transparency is key.

If you publicly tout “green” marketing achievements, ensure you have the numbers to back it up, and avoid exaggeration. Greenwashing concerns are high; marketers must verify any sustainability claims with solid data. In fact, making your marketing emissions and reductions public (in annual sustainability reports or on your website) not only builds trust but also forces internal accountability – if the world knows you’re tracking marketing CO₂ per campaign, your team is more likely to keep improving it. Some firms have even started publishing a “carbon cost” alongside financial cost in case studies or project summaries – subtly signaling to clients that they manage both budgets responsibly.

Align with industry standards and coalitions

The marketing and advertising industry is actively developing standards and pledges for sustainability. Besides Ad Net Zero, there’s the Global Alliance for Responsible Media’s sustainability framework, the Media Decarbonization initiative, and region-specific programs. Keeping abreast of these (and perhaps participating) will ensure you stay on the cutting edge of best practices. For example, if a standardized method for calculating CO₂ per media impression is released, adopt it early so you can benchmark against peers. As Marketing Dive reported, Ad Net Zero and WFA are working on a common measurement framework for media emissions – once that’s out, consider applying it to your media plans immediately.

By aligning your reporting with emerging global standards, you make your life easier (standards reduce guesswork) and make your claims more credible externally. Additionally, being part of industry coalitions or even informal peer groups can provide support and knowledge sharing. Sustainability is one area where even competitors sometimes collaborate, because the rising tide lifts all boats (and regulators’ expectations apply to everyone). If there’s a sustainability working group in your B2B marketing association or a local business council’s climate initiative, join in. You may gain access to data or tools (like emission factor databases) that benefit your program.

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Zooming out, these long-term strategies are about transforming marketing from the inside out. It’s a journey analogous to the digital transformation of marketing over the past decade – now it’s a sustainable transformation. The payoff is not only regulatory compliance, but also a marketing function that is more innovative, efficient, and aligned with the values of today’s stakeholders. As CSRD and other regulations evolve, companies that have embedded sustainability into their operations will be agile and unfazed, while those treating it as a one-time project will struggle. Importantly, by taking a long-term view, you position marketing as a leader in the company’s overall sustainability efforts. Rather than being dragged along by compliance, marketing can proactively contribute to corporate ESG goals – something that CMOs can highlight in board meetings. In professional services especially, a marketing team that deeply understands sustainability can help shape the firm’s narrative in the market as a responsible, future-ready partner. It contributes customer-centric business impact: every marketing activity should contribute not just to immediate sales, but to broader business objectives like reputation and customer trust. In an era where clients and employees care about climate action, cutting your carbon footprint is very much a part of delivering that business impact.

Turning Carbon Accountability into a Competitive Advantage

The next wave of CSRD reporting is a catalyst for change in marketing. By swiftly quantifying and cutting the carbon footprint of your marketing programs, you’re not only avoiding compliance headaches – you’re actively future-proofing your marketing strategy. Professional services firms operate on trust and expertise; showing leadership in sustainability bolsters both. When your firm can say, “We deliver results for our clients and we do so in a sustainable way, with measured proof,” it becomes a unique selling point.

Remember, many of your competitors will be scrambling when regulators or clients come knocking for detailed emissions data. If you’ve done the homework and implemented reductions early, you’ll be ahead of the curve. In practical terms, staying ahead means: use this year to get your measurement systems in place; start reporting internally on marketing CO₂; achieve some easy wins to build confidence; and set those longer-term goals that will guide continuous improvement.

Treat your carbon reduction initiatives like any other strategic marketing campaign – plan them, assign owners, measure outcomes, and celebrate successes. And just as importantly, integrate them so fully that “sustainable marketing” becomes just “marketing”.

The endgame is that considering carbon impact will be second nature in every marketing decision, much like considering cost or audience fit is today.

By aligning with the CSRD requirements early, you also grant your leadership team peace of mind. When FY2025 ends and it’s time to compile the sustainability report, marketing’s portion of the data will be solid, verified, and hopefully showing year-on-year improvement. This takes pressure off other departments and reinforces marketing’s role as a strategic, accountable function of the business. It’s a powerful narrative internally: the marketing team isn’t just generating leads, but also pioneering how the firm adapts to new world demands.

Finally, keep the broader perspective. The ultimate objective of all this is not just to satisfy CSRD, but to genuinely reduce emissions and contribute to climate goals. In that sense, marketing can punch above its weight. By driving low-carbon innovations in how you reach and serve clients, you influence not only your firm’s footprint but potentially those of your clients and partners (through ripple effects of your ideas and standards).

Every professional services marketer knows the importance of thought leadership – consider sustainability another domain where you can lead by example. The CSRD may be compelling action now, but the companies that thrive will be those that embrace sustainability as part of business excellence. In marketing, that means campaigns that are effective, data-driven, creative, and low-carbon.

Quantifying and cutting your marketing carbon footprint is a journey – one that starts with new metrics and ends with a stronger market position. With the right tools, a mix of quick wins and long-term vision, and a willingness to transform how marketing gets done, you can not only stay ahead of CSRD’s next disclosure wave but set a benchmark that others aspire to. In doing so, you’ll prove that sustainable marketing isn’t a cost or burden – it’s an opportunity to differentiate and to do good while doing well. The climate is changing, and so is the business climate; with proactive carbon accounting, your marketing organization will be prepared for both.