Three decades of COPs and we’re still asking the same question: has any of this actually changed the world, or are we just adding more hot air in the environment? COP30 arrives with a familiar sense of déjà vu, this time in Belém, deep in the Amazon, while tens of thousands of delegates fly in and Brazil is on the cusp of another oil boom, with drilling just 170km off its coast.
The contradiction is global. Since 1992, greenhouse gas emissions have climbed 65%, the planet has warmed by 1.2C °C, and last year’s extreme weather carried a US$1.5 trillion price tag.
And yet, writing COP off as a failure misses the full story. These summits have helped renewables to record affordability, turned net-zero into mainstream policy, and created political pressure that, while messy, still moves global behaviour. As Lucy von Stürmer notes, “Progress is uneven, but there is real momentum.”
But for the advertising and marketing industry, the picture is more conflicted. This is an industry that shapes culture, desire and demand, and has often used that power to prop up the very systems COP is trying to reform.
Fossil-fuel clients still buy influence, and sustainability messaging often sits behind substance. As Assembly’s APAC CEO Richard Brosgill puts it, “Communication without accountability is just noise.” And audiences are no longer buying the noise.
So, maybe COP30 is more than a credibility checkpoint for governments. It is also a moment of truth for the advertising industry to decide whether it will keep glossing over the gap between promises and practice, or finally use its influence to close it.
And after 30 years of these climate summits and enduring the hottest year in human history (2024), and climate damage rising by the month, the real question is: Have these summits and net-zero pledges delivered meaningful progress, or just more sophisticated language of delay?
Campaign Asia-Pacific asked the industry. Here’s what they had to say.
Richard Brosgill
CEO, Asia-Pacific, Assembly
We're just not making enough progress and definitely not at the speed that's needed. Each year sets a new record for heat, and with it, public trust grows thinner. People no longer want promises; they want proof that change is actually happening. Consumer scepticism is fully justified.
As an industry that shapes culture and consumption, we can't keep hiding behind awareness. Our role isn't just to tell stories about sustainability, it's to help engineer it. Communication without accountability is just noise, and noise is now part of the problem.
For us, that means moving beyond sustainability narratives and into meaningful action. ‘Make Change’ is one of our core values—a standard we hold ourselves to and a commitment to engineering real progress. As a certified B Corporation, we screen prospective clients for ESG risk and partner only with brands that demonstrate a genuine appetite for change. We’ve also built products like Clean Media Lab to give companies transparent, measurable insight into the carbon footprint of their media investment, and early results show that reducing emissions can strengthen business outcomes.
Internally, sustainability isn’t just a department; it’s embedded into how we operate. Every employee carries a personal sustainability objective within their performance goals, from reducing digital waste to helping clients shift toward cleaner media choices.
The next era of creativity isn't about greener storytelling. It's about proof, showing the measurable impact of what we make, not just the message we craft.
Jan Harling
CEO, Virtus Asia
As an optimist, yes, there is progress, and it matters. Without these summits, we would see far less action. China, the world’s largest emitter, is also undergoing one of the fastest energy transitions in history. Over 50% of its installed power capacity is now renewable. EV adoption is exploding. Accountability, however imperfect, has shaped behaviour and investment.
Imperfect as it may be, accountability has shaped behaviour, investment, and innovation.
But as a realist, progress is nowhere near enough. Emissions haven’t declined. Many net-zero promises remain symbolic or unverified. Companies are being removed from SBTi for failing to present credible plans. Moreso, 2050 has become an excuse to delay hard decisions. Too many organisations still treat sustainability as communications, not as a business transformation.
From a systems perspective, climate impact follows a Pareto dynamic: a small number of countries account for a disproportionate share of emissions (CO2). So China ~ 30% followed by the United States ~ 11% and then India ~ 8%, account for nearly half of global emissions.
I believe the real challenge now is behavioural. Technology can accelerate change, but it won’t deliver it alone. We need behaviour shifts on all fronts: from consumers, companies and systems. That’s where brands and marketing matter. From convenience to consciousness; consumption to stewardship; linear to circular; passive awareness to active participation—these four shifts are critical.
And let's not forget the new blind spot—energy footprint of AI and crypto. Google’s emissions have surged due to AI computing. Can we reduce emissions while accelerating an AI arms race? Only if we favour providers powered by renewables.
David Ketchum
CEO, Current Asia
Dialogue is always good.
There is the usual background buzz that this event risks being just a talking shop. The say/do gap is potentially getting even wider since the Trump administration has virtually permitted companies to not care about climate change. And Bill Gates’ ‘Three Tough Truths on Climate’ memo is another example of the dissolution of the purpose-driven sense of corporate responsibility that was pretty much mainstream just a few years ago.
The centre of the discussion has moved from ‘ESG is a journey we're all on’ to ‘We need to meet our energy demands and can’t solve the whole problem, so let’s deal with the worst parts and the parts that save everyone money.’ At the end of the day, marketing and communications clients and advertising and PR agencies have no moral or regulatory obligation to promote solutions to environmental protection. However, they should. 63% of millennials still say they will pay more for sustainable products. And 70% of Gen Z and millennials consider environmental sustainability when they pick who they are going to work for. Environmental policies and policing may be drifting, but the advertising industry must still listen to the end consumers who remain ready to pay heed–if not always believe.
Michael Ahmadzadeh
Co-founder, Electriclime
It’s hard not to feel that we’ve seen more language than action. Awareness is up, but measurable impact lags. Much of the pressure comes from culture, not policy. So, it's the people who are demanding better from brands and governments.
In our industry, sustainability has often been a talking point rather than a foundation. At Electriclime°, we’ve seen real progress come from small, consistent decisions: hiring locally, cutting unnecessary travel, reusing sets, rethinking what a “big” production needs.
Have pledges moved beyond PR? In some ways, yes. I think awareness and accountability are stronger, but the real test is consistency. Our goal is to work sustainably, influence others through our practices and storytelling, and prove that creativity and sustainability can coexist in how we actually operate.
Ivy Yang
Founder Wavelet Strategy
Thirty years of COP have bent the curve, but not enough. Yet at the corporate level, a lot of climate language was written as aspiration instead of constraint: “net zero by 2050” became a kind of corporate wallpaper while hard, near-term decisions about products, supply chains, and capital spending were put on hold.
The recent Arc’teryx fireworks fiasco in Tibet is an example of how that era is ending. A brand that built its identity around mountain ethics signed off on a giant high-altitude fireworks performance in a fragile Himalayan ecosystem, triggering public outrage, reputational damage, and penalties for ecological damage. Consumers who care about climate are quick to catch the cognitive dissonance and greenwashing, and Arc’teryx has been punished for playing the “impact for eyeballs” game when it is not backed by real stewardship.
The keyword here is real stewardship. The answer is not to write off climate pledges or to stop communicating success, but the way we do it has to change. The companies that will elevate their credibility are the ones that communicate their measurable impact well, with radical honesty that goes into the detail of the process, shows how the hard tradeoffs are made, and invites scrutiny from investors, employees, and customers. In other words, the role of PR is shifting from embellishing climate claims to magnifying genuine impact in a way that stakeholders can test and trust.Jan Harling
Lucy von Sturmer
Creatives for Climate Founder
Yes, progress is happening, but it’s still nowhere near fast enough. Renewables are over 80% cheaper and 90% of the global economy now has some kind of net-zero commitment. That didn’t happen by accident; it happened because this process pushed it forward.
But delivery is what matters now, and we need real pressure: starting with protecting the integrity of COP and stopping fossil fuel interests from slowing things down.
Still, there’s real hope: for the first time, Information Integrity and Culture, including the creative industries, are officially recognised at COP30. This will give us more momentum to drive greater accountability on promises made.
This week showcased progress: the first commercially grounded pathway for agencies to reduce reliance on fossil-fuel clients; new research from Purpose Disruptors showing how the sector underestimates its climate risk; and the launch of The Creative Integrity Playbook to help agencies take science-aligned action.
With fossil-ad restrictions, greenwash crackdowns, and governance rules tightening, the question is no longer if the industry will change, but whether it can afford the mounting risk of ignoring that change is happening.
Shufen Goh
Mediasense, president, APAC
If we reframe every marketing decision through the lens of eliminating waste—of resources, energy, and time—our marketing efforts will yield greater ROI and become greener. Why create a new brand campaign when the existing message hasn’t yet landed? CMOs can’t rewrite policies, but they can make bolder decisions to eliminate waste.
Patrick Eastwood
Partner, Prophet, Hong Kong
The frameworks are there, but the policy resolution often isn’t. As governments oscillate between ambition and rollback, companies face a glaring gap between what’s required and what’s regulated. Yet this is no excuse for inertia. The next decade must be about credibility and courage: embedding sustainability into commercial strategy because it simply makes business sense in an era of extreme weather, resource constraints, and rising expectations from younger employees and consumers.
COP is, first and foremost, a forum for governments to set the global direction, but business now shapes much of the momentum. Policies may be negotiated by states, yet delivery increasingly depends on companies, which is why it’s important to distinguish between what governments commit to at COP30 and how companies and brands respond to the shifting external factors that are so visible to us all.
Asia-based leaders like BYD and O’right show that designing business strategy around the realities of climate change, resource constraints, and shifting expectations from younger consumers and employees can be a powerful engine for both growth and genuine impact. Governments may set the standards, but brands now set expectations. The leaders will be those who move beyond compliance to drive progress — proving that commercial success and climate responsibility are inseparable.
Sven Rebholz
Partner and MD, Jung von Matt
Agencies and brands must shift focus from telling stories about change to designing systems that enable it. Political agreements are one thing - communicating them effectively is another. Without understanding, emotion and participation, even the best political agenda stays abstract. That’s where our role as creative agencies lies.
Communication can be a catalyst. But only if it’s backed by real product innovation, transparent reporting, and cultural courage. As an industry, our influence lies not in spin but in shaping aspiration and making low-carbon lifestyles desirable and high-impact habits obsolete. That’s the creative challenge of our time. And to turn the responsibility into relevance will take close collaboration between industry, politics and the creative community.
Responses have been edited for clarity and brevity.
Marielle Descalsota contributed to this feature.
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