Pushing the climate crisis: How advertising fuels high-carbon lifestyles

Dr Victoria Harvey is a researcher and senior carbon consultant who focuses on the UK advertising industry.

Helen Phillips’ book, ‘Hum’, is set in a dystopian near future, in a city suffering the effects of climate breakdown and with dire air quality. Robots (the Hums) press advertising messages during conversations, meetings and even as they carry out medical procedures.

The Hums are vehicles for these ads, which are often for products like cosmetics, sweets or anything that might be relevant during interactions with humans. This advertising is poorly disguised, and merges with sentiments that lean towards concerns of well-being, convincing people how much better off they’ll be if they make a purchase.

While the novel is futuristic, the insidious way advertising permeates daily life is resonant of how adverts show up in our world today. And these ads are directly contributing to the worsening future climate Phillips describes in her book.

Already by the summer of 2026, Europe had seen a 57% increase in wildfires in just four years with western Europe recording the hottest ever June and July on record. We’re facing droughts and floods, as well as predicted hikes in food costs or even chronic food shortages – and that’s before the expected additional effects of a strong El Niño later this year.

Frequent flying and bigger burgers

A portion of this climate breakdown is fuelled by over-consumption in richer countries, particularly of products that are high carbon – for which advertising can take some of the blame. Research shows that adverts drive citizens to consume about a third more goods and services in general, over and above what they might have purchased.

Yet despite a clear link between promoting high-carbon behaviours and climate breakdown, little advertising regulation exists in the UK. Take frequent flying for instance, one of the most carbon-intensive activities we can partake in.

EasyJet’s latest ad campaign is called “Drop Everything”. It encourages consumers to book cheap flights departing within the next 48 hours for presumably short or weekend getaways. Rather than a specific destination, “Drop Everything” promotes a mindset that encourages indiscriminate consumption of flying. The ads were shown on billboards with clever creative slogans, as well as on digital media and through influencer campaigns.

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Overall, flight numbers are increasing. The UK Civil Aviation Authority reported the highest number of UK passengers in the first quarter of 2026 (more than 61 million, breaking previous records for travel between January and March). It seems we’re still not joining the dots between flying and a worsening climate.

And how about meat consumption? Scientists advocate for less meat-eating, especially beef which has the highest carbon footprint of nearly all foods. Yet adverts from McDonald’s proliferate, helping make it one of the highest-volume sellers of fast-food chain beef burgers. In 2024, the outdoor advertising budget for McDonald’s UK rose to £86 million, an increase of 71% on previous years.

A billboard carrying McDonald’s UK advertising for one of its biggest burgers, which won “Badvert” of the month in May 2026 (Photo: Badvertising) A billboard carrying McDonald’s UK advertising for one of its biggest burgers, which won “Badvert” of the month in May 2026 (Photo: Badvertising)

Small share for sustainability

While over half of UK ad professionals feel increasingly queasy about their profession and its effects on the climate crisis, the people running the show – the UK trade bodies – prefer to focus on the growth advertising brings.

In the first three months of 2026, they stated that UK advertising spend increased by 9.3%, reaching a total of £11.7 billion for that quarter, fuelling consumption and market growth.

But how many of those adverts actually promote low carbon goods and services? Kantar’s Sustainable Ads Tracker shows the percentage of ads featuring sustainability messaging in 2026 is around 4.3%. That’s woefully low, and much of this is made up of messaging that promotes recycling.

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Additionally, the industry continues to happily produce adverts for the large oil and gas corporations that are fuelling climate breakdown. These adverts only narrowly pass the Advertising Standards Authorities’ advertising codes, allowing the continued greenwashing of the world’s most polluting brands.

There is essentially no leadership from the UK trade bodies, likely because they are directly funded by the brands and advertisers themselves. They are essentially ‘ad shushing’ – pushing for indiscriminate growth and directing attention to their sustainability awards, while confusingly denying that adverts drive higher consumption overall.

Let’s ‘un-shush’

Where does this leave us as we are subjected to hundreds, if not thousands, of persuasive advertising messages every day that support high-carbon lifestyles? Most ad professionals are unable to push back against this agenda at work, often due to the threat of job loss. The advertising trade bodies won’t take the lead as they work in service to big brands and advertisers.

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So, who can push for the changes we need? Members of the public.

Through pressuring our city officials and governments, we can force through restrictions, such as the watershed bans on unhealthy foods on TV before 9pm in the UK. Through supporting the efforts of organisations such as Ad Free Cities and others, we can help achieve bans on outdoor advertising for fossil fuels, aviation, meat and even single-use plastics in cities and regions such as Amsterdam, The Hague, Edinburgh, Florence, Uppsala and many more.

If we’re serious about climate change and stopping big global brands pushing their high-carbon products onto us, then advertising restrictions are one of the best ways to achieve this. If we don’t want a world like the one Phillips describes in her book, we need to make our voices heard above the advertising noise.

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