AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS — Purpose-driven advertising, PR, and marketing industry leaders will convene in Amsterdam on June 06, 2024 for the first Ethical Agency Summit organized by the non-profit Creatives for Climate.
The event will showcase a variety of C-suite executives from agencies, climate organizations and brands across the UK and Europe, including Ireland, Denmark, the Netherlands, and more. Frontrunners will highlight industry challenges and share insights on how businesses can drive ethical behavior, with the aim of enabling the wider industry to adopt these learnings and drive positive change.
Discussions will cover the industry’s ethical dilemmas, current regulation and accreditation standards, scaling and developing new agency models, and a vision of more positive industry-driving solutions. Creatives for Climate will also gather responses for a new survey at the summit, which aims to report on knowledge gaps the industry can harness to become more responsible.
As the climate crisis escalates, the advertising and PR industries remain closely intertwined with the world’s most polluting sectors. In 2022, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres shone a spotlight on “the massive public relations machine raking in billions to shield the fossil fuel industry from scrutiny” and likened the industry’s involvement in fossil fuels to its work for the tobacco industry decades earlier.
Creatives for Climate’s rapidly growing global community of 30,000 creatives includes agencies and marketers across disciplines ranging from communications to advertising to design who are dedicated to working on pioneering a more responsible approach to marketing. The Ethical Agency Summit will champion their perspectives and approaches.
Creatives for Climate’s recently launched Ethical Agency Alliance includes some of the agencies that will be speaking. They will fill slots alongside speakers from Badvertising, Reclame Fossielvrij, ClientEarth, B Lab, and Wieden+Kennedy.
”Creatives for Climate initially launched as a summit in 2019 and has developed into a global NGO. Leading this transformation and holding another milestone summit for the movement is required to champion climate and social justice leadership. The Ethical Agency Summit will showcase standards and initiatives that capture the industry’s real-time response to the climate crisis. By connecting key players, we want to discuss and demonstrate accessible ways the sector can become a transformative force instead of a passive one,” said Lucy von Sturmer, Initiator of Creatives for Climate.
“Advertising holds immense power in shaping how we respond to the climate and environmental crises. It’s crucial for agencies to grasp the legal boundaries that protect against greenwashing and the implications for those falsely advertising green credentials,” commented Jonathan White, Lawyer at Accountable Corporations for ClientEarth.
Andrew Simms of Badvertising emphasized, “The creative industries face their biggest challenge, how to stop selling ‘stuff’ that people don’t need, and how instead to encourage systems and human behaviour to change at the speed and scale demanded by the climate and nature crises. We urgently need gatherings of extraordinary creative talent like this to spark a shift. Our collective challenge is to imagine and refashion a world free of commercial pressure to over-consume, and full of encouragement for rapid transition.”
“Communications agencies play a key role in driving sustainable change by choosing which clients they represent, and even more important: which not. Fossil Free Advertising Netherlands is proud to take part in the Ethical Agency Summit to meet with leaders of change and collaborate on ideas for the future,” furthered Femke Sleegers of Fossil Free Advertising, Netherlands (Reclame Fossielvrij).
The Ethical Agency Summit will be held at Equals, Amsterdam, and ticket prices will start from €25. All proceeds will go towards Creatives for Climate’s mission to activate climate leadership within the creative industries. The summit will be followed by an Aotearoa New Zealand summit later in 2024 to accelerate global conversations.
Sessions from the event will also be available to watch online via Creatives for Climate’s Hub where attendees can also connect virtually through the platform.
To purchase tickets or sign up for the online waitlist, visit this link.
