Ms Laura Costello:

I thank the committee for the invitation to attend this meeting. Purpose Disruptors Ireland is a community-driven network of marketing and advertising insiders with a mission to catalyse the advertising industry's climate transition to align with the 1.5°C global warming target set by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC. The focus of our work is to help those in the industry to reimagine and reshape the role of advertising to support a thriving future. We drive this by facilitating collaboration and providing frameworks and tools to guide our industry in the right direction.

It is clear that advertising drives consumption, and consumption contributes to climate change. , which makes householders key actors in reaching the 1.5°C goal. found recently that the individual lifestyle footprint target for 2050, which is 0.7 tonnes of CO₂equivalent, is exceeded in all countries it researched. According to the last year to 12.3 tonnes of CO₂equivalent per person in 2021. This needs to reduce dramatically if we are to reach the target of 0.7 tonnes of CO₂equivalent by 2050. Not addressing the reduction in emissions from lifestyle and households puts the requirement to cut Ireland's emissions to net zero by 2050 at risk.

On the other hand, has also made clear the enormous opportunity that exists. It has stated, "Socio-cultural changes within transition pathways can offer Gigaton-scale CO2 savings potential at the global level." We need people to want to change. Advertising does more than just sell; it drives desire, creates culture and shapes society. It drives mass attitude and behaviour change. Advertising is a $600 billion industry. In Ireland, it will grow to €1.23 billion this year. Every day, virtually every human on the planet is touched and influenced by it. It is arguably the biggest engine of societal change in existence.

As an architect of desire, the industry will play a vital role in determining whether the world will successfully transition towards a low-carbon, sustainable society. The level of transformation needed is massive. from October 2022 states that we require "wide-ranging, large-scale and systemic transformation". It goes on to say that the only way to limit the worst impacts of the climate crisis is by a "rapid transformation of societies". The advertising industry needs to go through its own radical transformation to help to accelerate systemic societal transformation.

We know what this paradigm shift requires. In the UK, Purpose Disruptors, in collaboration with Magic Numbers, recently calculated the nation's for 2022. Borrowing from the idea of financed emissions, which is already established, advertised emissions are defined as the greenhouse gas emissions that result from the uplift in sales generated by advertising. Things are going in the wrong direction. Advertised emissions have risen by 11%, to 208 million tonnes of CO₂equivalent, from 2019 to 2022, which is equivalent to 56 coal-fired power plants running for a year. This means advertising is responsible for adding an extra 32% to the carbon footprint of every single person in the country. High-carbon industries are driving this increase. While we do not have the same research commissioned yet in Ireland, we know consumption is growing on a similar trajectory here. For example, UK advertising spend this year compared with Ireland's

We need to find ways to achieve steep reductions in these emissions at rapid pace. We must disrupt the purpose of advertising with new aspirational visions of tomorrow, supported by actions today. Right now, the change we see is focused on production and operations. This is slow and does not go deep into the heart of the creative work, which is the area in which we are having the biggest impact on society. We are extremely concerned about this. The Ad Net Zero initiative found that in advertising are worried about the negative impacts of the industry on the environment.

The position taken by Purpose Disruptors Ireland is that our industry needs to take responsibility for reducing its impact and optimising the creative work it puts into the world. To make the industry's transition faster and easier to manage, the science requires us to change what is advertised. This starts with doing less harm. The skills in the advertising industry are essential for the radical transformation Irish society requires. The industry can accelerate the adoption of the goods, services, behaviours and attitudes we need to transition to a net zero economy. We have seen advertising's brilliance as a positive force in society on many fronts, including saving lives with campaigns encouraging the use of seat belts and Covid-19 safety measures.

The advertised emissions data show that the most effective way to achieve a reduction in those emissions is to restrict the highest carbon products in the most carbon-intensive categories, including fossil fuels, transport such as automotive and flying, and red meat production. Taking the ban on cigarette advertising in the US as an example, we can predict that if there were a ban on categories of high-carbon products and services, which has already happened in with fossil fuels and with meat, we would see a corresponding decline in carbon emissions.

The vast majority of people in Ireland have a desire to see the industry adapt to this potential. In 2020, Purpose Disruptors Ireland, in collaboration with Behaviour & Attitudes, found that, because of its influence, 90% of people think it is the advertising and creative industry's responsibility to encourage and normalise more sustainable behaviours. Our position on the opportunity for the industry is that we are required to look beyond treating people as consumers who buy things and invite them to discover their agency as citizens, thereby helping us all to adopt sustainable behaviours through our communications. This reframing must sit at the heart of the industry if it is to achieve the scale and pace required. To begin, we need to decouple our skills. We need less investment in high-carbon campaigns and more investment in campaigns that will push us towards our 1.5°C goal.

By accelerating the position of doing less harm, we can then reapply the incredible creative effectiveness of the industry, with appropriate speed and scale, to more life-affirming outcomes for all.