Calculator Reviewing Policy (V1)

This reviewing policy is effective from Monday 9 October, 2023 and relates to the previous AdGreen carbon calculator only, which can be found at calc.weareadgreen.org. Information about the current AdGreen carbon calculator can be found here.

INTRODUCTION

This policy establishes the guidelines pertaining to the reviewing of projects created in the AdGreen carbon calculator which have been submitted for review by the Principal Production Partner (PPP). Only projects submitted for review can be completed, and only completed projects go into the dataset.

Scope

This policy covers all projects submitted for review on or after the publication date of this policy (Monday 9 October), regardless of how many times they have been submitted/resubmitted, and regardless of the user or organisation submitting them.

POLICY GUIDELINES

Overview

Projects are reviewed by AdGreen for several reasons:

  • To support a level of data hygiene for the dataset as a whole
  • To train users in how to input more accurately and to support their ongoing carbon literacy
  • To ensure a level of trust in the aggregate data reported in annual reports and other documents

Review criteria

As of the publication date above, submitted and resubmitted projects which meet both of the following criteria will be reviewed:

  1. A budget of at least £50,000 in total (or equivalent in other currencies) AND
  2. A total footprint of at least 2 tonnes CO2e

Where projects do not meet both criteria, every 20th project will be reviewed, as a ‘spot check’.

Review process

When a project is submitted, the team will first check if it meets both criteria. If it does not, the team will ascertain as to whether it is the 20th non-qualifying project. If it is not, it will be marked as complete without being reviewed, and the users attached to the project will be notified via a notification in the project’s messages pane.

For projects qualifying for a review either by meeting both criteria or by having spot check status, the following process takes place once the project has been submitted:

  • AdGreen team look over the project attributes provided e.g., number of shoot days, budget etc to get an overall impression of the project and an idea of likely activities
  • AdGreen team look at each activity area in relation to the project details, to see if there are any activities which have been omitted, are unexpected, or are too low/high in relation to internal benchmarks and reviewing experience
  • AdGreen team look at the Adgreen look for any obvious outliers with regards to the activity information provided

After the review is done, any messages for the contributor company users will be added in the project’s messages pane and the project is marked as either ‘Complete’, or ‘Amendments Needed’. If the latter, the contributor companies who need to make amendments will then receive an email notification. The project can be resubmitted for review when the PPP is ready, and the process starts again.

If a project is resubmitted, the AdGreen team checks to see if the messages have been addressed satisfactorily. If so, the project is marked as Complete. If there are still outstanding issues, it will be marked as ‘Amendments Needed’ again – and so on until the team are satisfied that everything has been addressed.

The current turnaround time for reviews is communicated via the tool, however at time of writing it is 10 working days or less for submitted projects. This is the same for resubmitted projects, however they are prioritised.

Confirmation of a completed project

This is provided via an email notification, to the following individuals:

  • The individual user who created the project
  • Individual users who have been invited to the project from the PPP and TPPP(s)
  • Other admins at the PPP who did not create the project (N.B. they can still see the project on login, as they can see all projects for their company)
  • Other admins at the TPPP who are not invited to the project (N.B. they can still see the project on login, as they can see all projects for their company)
  • Relevant admin/users of the reviewer companies, such as the brand and production consultancies

External communications regarding completed projects

If any company involved would like to communicate their commitment to measuring projects using the AdGreen carbon calculator, they can download a badge from the link here. It’s recommended that these badges are used on company websites or email signatures. Using them on final pieces of content is not advised.

It’s important to note that a completed project has not been audited or certified by AdGreen. Users are not asked to provide any evidence to support the activity data that they have entered. At this early stage of both carbon literacy and advertising production activity measurement, it’s felt that AdGreen’s role is to emphasise progress over perfection, and to build a dataset upon which some initial conclusions can be drawn as reference points.

If any of the entities involved in the productions in the tool are looking to report data either due to legal compliance regarding scope 3 reporting, or as part of annual reports to demonstrate net zero progress or other CSR activities, they should seek an independent audit as required.

Opportunity to offset

When any of the users noted above login, they will see the project’s status is ‘completed’. In addition, when on the project overview, they can follow the link to offset the project with Ecologi.

If you have any questions about this policy, please email [email protected].

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