Influencer Marketing: What is its Carbon Footprint?

At the dawn of a certain maturity found in the Influencer Marketing market, its rapid expansion is raising new questions in 2024. In a complex dynamic driven by the climate crisis, how can we ensure the environmental impact of the growing number of campaigns launched by brands? Can we really understand and control this aspect of Influence projects? What strategies can brands adopt to integrate sustainability into the heart of their marketing activities without compromising their effectiveness and reach?

While these questions are gradually being answered, a study conducted by the digital sustainability optimisation agency Footsprint found that the carbon impact of the digital publications of an influencer with 3m subscribers was 1.072 tonnes of CO2e per year, the equivalent of more than 481 round trips between Paris and New York. By way of comparison, a study conducted by Ademe and Arcep showed that the average French person generates an annual digital carbon footprint of 253 kilos of CO2.

At Kolsquare, we firmly believe that creativity and responsibility go hand in hand. That's why we've collaborated with Sami, the carbon footprint auditing platform, to develop a solution that effectively addresses the challenges of carbon footprinting in the context of growing Influencer Marketing campaigns: A tool that offers an open approach to measure your carbon footprint accurately.

But why is this approach so crucial? It is because every stage of a campaign in collaboration with a KOL (Key Opinion Leader), from content production to product distribution, generates greenhouse gas emissions that are essential to consider in the current context. Fortunately, solutions exist to optimise this process without compromising the performance of your marketing strategies.

Throughout this guide, we've tried to give you concrete, practical advice on how to strengthen discussions without compromising the success of your Influence campaigns.

"The carbon impact of influence is not a totally topical subject with influencers. The difficulty lies in modelling all this and raising awareness among all parties, so that we're all better educated about it," comments Agathe Williatte, Head of Communications and Influence at Wopilo. "The fact that we can measure and estimate the impact of the various actions of an influencer campaign can help educate us quickly and encourage the assimilation of mental automatisms. Eventually, this practice will become part of our daily habits, enabling us to manage a campaign while minimising its environmental footprint."