How to integrate the ecological transition into media and marketing activities: what to remember from our mind Media Day conference

Industrial policies of media groups in terms of paper printing, employee training and new “more responsible” projects, changes in newsrooms and their editorial treatment of news, integration and standardization of carbon impact measurement in strategies and in the metrics of the advertising industry, advertising strategies, self-regulation of the sector… As recalled by Agnès Pannier-Runacher, Minister for the Ecological Transition, invited to open our conference, “the world of advertising, media and marketing has the power to change things, transform reality and make our way of consuming more sustainable. I count on the industry to go even further.” The period of awareness has passed, and while much emphasis has been placed on self-regulation, the sector is being urged by public authorities to take action.

THE ECOLOGICAL TRANSITION IS TRANSFORMING PRACTICES
WITHIN PRESS GROUPS

Between a difficult economic context and growing pressure from consumers, employees and public authorities in the face of the climate emergency, the stakes are high for press groups, whether in terms of optimizing energy consumption for digital activities, industrial production linked to the printing of newspapers and magazines, logistics or distribution.

To reduce its carbon footprint, publishers have implemented devices to measure their emissions. And this is what the three press groups present for our round table, namely the EBRA group with its CEO Philippe Carli, Le Monde with Louis Dreyfus and the CMI France group with Valérie Salomon, have chosen to do, by starting each for their part, a carbon footprint and an audit with their customers, employees and suppliers. The PQR group EBRA (Le Progrès, Le Dauphiné Libéré, Les Dernieres Nouvelles d’Alsace, L’Est Républicain, etc.) indicates a carbon footprint of 75,000 tonnes of CO2 per year.

“There is a very strong demand from our customers and our employees to have a CSR approach, underlined Philippe Carli, CEO of EBRA. This is true for our group, but also for the other APIG titles. We must ensure, at all stages of our industrial production, that we minimize our carbon impact. In concrete terms, this means looking for and buying recycled paper – that’s 95% of our paper purchases at EBRA -, it’s also pushing for energy sobriety, for example by recovering part of the energy from our printing works, and using natural, vegetable inks when possible – but it’s hard to find on the market. We are also working on our logistics to pool flows within the regional national daily press in order to avoid making double rounds of trucks and we select as much as possible from the most local suppliers possible. On advertising, media publishers, all together, with the carbon measurement service provider DK, we have set up a calculator based on data certified by Ademe to measure the carbon impact of publications online and in press.”

“We put pressure on ourselves and we also have pressure from our employees,…

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