Serviced Emissions

The greenhouse gas emissions that professional service providers are responsible for through the advice they give and the work they do.

The advertising industry shapes what people buy, want, and value. That influence doesn't stop at your office door.

Serviced Emissions is a framework, developed by Oxford Net Zero, that asks professional service providers such as lawyers, consultants, advertisers, PR firms, to account for the emissions their work makes possible. Not just the carbon from running their operations, but the emissions arising from the client activities they inform, enable, and accelerate.

For advertising, that means Advertised Emissions. For law, it means Advised Emissions. For management consulting, Consulted Emissions. Each sector has its own methodology within a shared framework that holds the same principle: if you have influence over emissions, you carry responsibility for them.

1 Strategy & Vision

Develop a strategy to recognise, understand and reduce your Serviced Emissions as part of your commitment to net-zero, and within a holistic climate strategy that goes beyond Scope 1, 2 and 3.

2 Governance

Develop the governance structures to uphold your commitments, across both your own operational emissions and your Serviced Emissions.

Build the institutional capacity for delivery.

3 Due Diligence & Risk

Integrate climate considerations into how you assess new and existing clients, projects and services.

Embed climate into risk and due diligence processes including your organisational appetite for Serviced Emissions.

Serviced Emissions isn't just a concept. It's a practical framework with six clear action areas that any professional service provider can begin to work with — wherever they're starting from.

These actions are designed as a starting point to help chart a path forward, for professional service providers to approach their climate transition as part of a continuous improvement model.

The framework was designed to be used iteratively: plan, develop, act, evaluate, inform. Then go again.

4 Client Delivery

Embed climate opportunities and risks into the work you do with clients, not just in how you run your own business.

Encourage proactive involvement in sustainable and climate-positive practices across your client portfolios.

5 Measure Impact

Track the GHG outcomes of the services you provide and report honestly on where you are.

Integrate serviced emissions impacts into your post-project/client and actively share best-practice across your organisation.

6 Systemic Change

Advocate for the regulatory and policy changes needed to accelerate the climate transition across your sector.

Exert influence within and through industry associations to advocate for positive change.

Our role: helping shape a global standard

Purpose Disruptors was in the room when Serviced Emissions was first developed. Our work on Advertised Emissions was a direct inspiration for the framework, and since its launch we have been one of its most active advocates.

We signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Oxford Net Zero and became a Founding Member of the Serviced Emissions Hub, launched in October 2025. The Hub brings together firms across law, consulting, advertising and PR to experiment with the six action areas, share what they are learning, and build collective momentum toward a cross-sector standard.

We are also actively supporting efforts to have Serviced Emissions embedded in global reporting standards where inclusion would make this framework mandatory rather than voluntary for large professional service organisations.

This is the direction of travel. The question for every advertising organisation is whether they want to help shape what comes next, or wait until it arrives.

Visit the Serviced Emissions Hub at Oxford Net Zero