New research quantifies the climate damage from airline advertising and sponsorships

Published 22nd April 2024 (Image above: British Airways)

There is a folklore saying in the marketing industry: ”We know that half of all we spend on advertising is wasted, but we don’t know which half.”  Showing a direct and specific link between a particular marketing output (such as a city billboard or a newspaper advert)has proved challenging.  

But we know that advertising works. We are also able to calculate how that increase in sales, when it comes to airline advertising, is driving up emissions.

New research from the Badvertising campaign now quantifies how spending on advertising and sponsorship by 6 airlines leads to an associated increase in greenhouse gas emissions (also known as CO2 equivalent or CO2e)

From this we can estimate the emissions resulting from recent sponsorship deals for some of these airlines.

British Airways reported £3million GBP deal with the England Rugby team from 2019 onwards leads to emissions of 147 thousand tonnes of CO2e.

Lufthansa brand exposure in its $4million USD deal with the German Football Association could generate 136 thousand tonnes of CO2e.     (Using an exchange rate of 1 USD ≈ 0.94 EUR)