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How Clever Marketing Sold the World The Myth of the Carbon Footprint
How a successful Ogilvy & Mather campaign in the early 2000s made climate change not about an oil giant, but all about you.
What’s your carbon footprint?
While researching how I could make better decisions for the planet, I found online calculators to measure your carbon footprint.
You punch in your personal details, and it shows how your travel choices, food choices, and lifestyle contribute to carbon emissions, which leads to climate change.
That’s when I stumbled upon the origin of the term carbon footprint and the first carbon footprint calculator.
It may surprise you — or not — the carbon footprint concept is the brainchild of the world’s fourth largest petroleum company and the world’s most successful advertising agency.
So how did your carbon footprint become part of the everyday language around climate change?
That’s because the advertising campaign proved rather brilliant.
In the early 2000s, British Petroleum, or BP, popularized the term “carbon footprint” to the public.
British Petroleum, the world’s fourth biggest oil corporation, with operations in 78 countries, employed public relations firm Ogilvy & Mather in London to spread the idea that climate change is not the responsibility of an oil business, but of individuals.
In 2004, BP unveiled the first carbon footprint calculator on their website.
The site was part of BP’s marketing campaign, “Beyond Petroleum.” They interviewed genuine people on the street in London, asking them:
“What is the size of your carbon footprint?”
After the marketer asks, the people on the street respond with “I” or “We.” In the discussion about the climate, they put themselves in…
