Ad Net Zero has a framework covering 95% of global media spend. Only 4.3% of ads show sustainable behaviour.
New measurement and creative tools, launched at Cannes Lions, aim to make sustainable advertising the default. The figures suggest the industry is moving the other way.
New measurement and creative tools, launched at Cannes Lions, aim to make sustainable advertising the default. The figures suggest the industry is moving the other way.
Sustainable advertising has never been better measured however it is barely being practised. At Cannes Lions on Tuesday 23rd June 2026, its second day, Ad Net Zero pushed harder on the measurement, launching the third edition of its Global Media Sustainability Framework and a creative toolkit called Every Brief Counts.
The Global Media Sustainability Framework (GMSF), now at version 1.3, extends coverage to emissions from 95% of global media spend. For the first time, advertisers and agencies can use GMSF-aligned tools to view sustainability performance and compare the impact of different media decisions across markets and channels. The framework covers digital, TV, out-of-home and print; guidance for audio and cinema is coming. It has been developed with input from a broad industry coalition including Dentsu, Google, Havas, Meta, Omnicom, Publicis Groupe, TikTok and WPP.
The framework’s expansion matters as fragmented measurement has been one of the structural problems in sustainable media planning. Without a common methodology, comparisons between channels and markets were unreliable, and sustainability reporting was largely a compliance exercise with little bearing on planning. The GMSF attempts to fix that.
Sebastian Munden CBE, Ad Net Zero Global Chair, described the update as a milestone, arguing that “sustainable advertising delivers commercially through greater effectiveness, smart efficiencies and waste reduction.” The commercial framing is deliberate: sustainability positioned as a business argument rather than a value one
Every Brief Counts makes the creative case
The second tool targets an earlier stage in the advertising process. Developed by Dentsu Creative UK, Every Brief Counts is a voluntary toolkit for creatives, strategists and brand teams to incorporate more sustainable behaviours into the advertising they make, drawing on publicly available climate science including the IPCC AR6 Chapter 5 report and Project Drawdown.
It launched as a pilot in late 2024 and is now scaling. Participants to date include Channel 4, Havas UK, ITV, JCDecaux, Meta and Sky Media.
Kantar evidence cited by Ad Net Zero shows that ads depicting sustainable behaviours outperform others on both short and long-term effectiveness and tend to be more distinctive within their category. If that holds across a larger sample, it makes the business case for Every Brief Counts cleaner than most climate-linked creative arguments manage to be.
Jessica Tamsedge, CEO of Dentsu Creative UK, said the toolkit was designed to “hardwire sustainability into the creative process” rather than treat it as something separate from core business delivery.
The headline number goes in the wrong direction
The difficulty with the announcement is the data sitting alongside it. The Sustainable Behaviours Ad Tracker, run by the Advertising Association, Ad Net Zero and Kantar, shows that just 4.3% of ads currently feature sustainable behaviours. That is down from 6.1% in the tracker’s first report, published in April 2025.
Ad Net Zero has built a framework covering 95% of global media spend and a creative toolkit backed by the biggest names in the industry. In the same period, the share of ads showing sustainable behaviour has fallen by nearly a third.
The press release does not address this directly. The working assumption appears to be that better tools produce better outcomes over time. That may prove true. But the immediate picture is one of infrastructure running well ahead of adoption.
Stephanie Helen Scheller, Managing Partner Sustainable Solutions EMEA at Omnicom Media Group, identified scale as the priority: “The real opportunity now is scale, embedding these approaches into everyday planning and creativity so that sustainable choices become the default, not the exception.” The emphasis on scale is itself an admission that embedding has not yet happened.
A dual programme: London and Cannes
Ad Net Zero is also running a content programme at London Climate Action Week for the first time, alongside its established Cannes Lions presence. The dual positioning is a deliberate attempt to reach sustainability and advertising professionals in the same fortnight. Whether the audiences overlap enough to accelerate adoption is what the programme is implicitly trying to test.
What this means in practice
The GMSF expansion is the more immediately useful of the two announcements for agencies and advertisers operating at scale. A framework covering 95% of global media spend, aligned with carbon accounting standards and designed for cross-market reporting, addresses a real and longstanding gap.
Every Brief Counts is a harder sell now, not because the argument is wrong but because the uptake problem it is trying to solve is structural. Better tools for creatives do not resolve the brief-writing and commissioning decisions that determine whether sustainability appears in a campaign at all. Those decisions happen earlier, and further up the hierarchy, than any toolkit reaches.
The GMSF now has the coverage to make measurement credible. The question is whether credible measurement changes commercial behaviour. The trend line, for now, suggests it has not.
The adoption gap is probably the biggest takeaway here. Better frameworks are important, but they only create impact when they're reflected in everyday campaign decisions. Reducing waste isn't just about sustainability, it also means validating media quality and making sure budgets are reaching genuine audiences instead of wasted impressions. Those small improvements can add up for both campaign performance and long-term sustainability.