About CFI
The Carbon Footprint Initiative was founded in the summer of 2023 by Danske Medier and Kreativitet og Kommunikation. The purpose of the association is to establish a digital platform which, in long term, will form the basis for a joint industry approach in relation to defining, collecting and distributing relevant data for climate calculation to be able to offer credible emission figures for the media industry in Denmark.
Today, there are 17 members of the Carbon Footprint Initiative from all parts of the media and advertising industry.
Why the Carboon Footprint Initiative?
The association Carbon Footprint Initiative was founded with a desire to create credibility and transparency in the calculation of CO2 emissions in the Danish advertising market.
We will do this by establishing a transparent and uniform basis for calculating the CO2 emissions of advertisements within the framework of a relevant area of application and methodological basis, which is based on the EU’s legal requirements and international experience.
We also want to engage in further dialogue and cooperation with existing tools on data exchange, coordination and optimization and ensure that our work is done in accordance with the EU’s requirements and established standards regarding the measurement and reporting of climate footprints.
In the long term, we want our work in the Carbon Footprint Initiative to influence future legislation and standards in the advertising market.
Firstly, the Carbon Footprint initiative ensures that the industry has one set of numbers.
Without a common method and data, the industry will inevitably end up in a situation where consumers, advertisers and the industry itself cannot discern whether the calculated differences in the emissions of a campaign are due to differences in calculation methods and basic data or actual differences in the climate footprint of the campaign.
Secondly, the Carbon Footprint Initiative ensures that the industry only needs to do the work once.
If a media agency is to deliver a credible account of campaign emissions, it must collect data from all the media they work with.
This entails an unmanageable amount of data collection work across the industry, when all agencies must collect data from all media.
The Carbon Footprint Initiative collects data once and passes it on to agencies and other relevant actors.
Thirdly, the Carbon Footprint Initiative creates the conditions for the industry to receive a validated report.
The Carbon Footprint Initiative develops a common, credible method with associated basic data. The method is developed based on international standards to the extent that such exist; and to the extent that there are no established standards, the Carbon Footprint Initiative participates in various international fora with a view to providing them.
It is a task which lies beyond what the individual agencies or media are expected to be able to handle themselves.
