Dentsu International: Industry-leading decarbonisation

Dentsu international has achieved impressive results to radically decarbonise its operations and inspire wider sustainable behaviour change in the media industry and beyond. In 2021, it became one of the first companies in the world to have its net-zero target validated by the Science Based Targets initiative, including a new deep decarbonisation target to reduce absolute emissions by 90% by 2040 across its entire value chain. In 2021 dentsu was powered by 100% renewable electricity across all offices and operations in the UK and globally.

Other initiatives include linking £500m of revolving credit to ESG and tying executive incentive plans to carbon reduction and gender parity targets, further incentivising our leaders to achieve our Social Impact targets. In 2021, dentsu augmented its research from industry initiative ‘DIMPACT’ with in-house development, creating a prototype dentsu digital media calculator for clients, in collaboration with UK consultancy, Avieco, part of Accenture.

Efforts to shift behaviour change across the industry include the production of original thought leadership, ‘The Rise of Sustainable Media’, and launching the Rise Up Challenge, designed to create a youth movement to combat food waste, engaging 1,553 young people and over 160 dentsu volunteers.

In 2021, dentsu reduced its Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 53% against a 2019 baseline. In partnership with clients, including Co-op, IKEA and Kraft Heinz, dentsu reached 14.8 million people with campaigns to make better, more sustainable choices and educated more than 6.3 million people on how to make their lifestyles more sustainable.