Bloomberg Media's Green Collective Attracts Sponsors to Climate-Change Journalism

For Bloomberg Media, green initiatives mean green returns. Bloomberg Green, the environmentally focused sub-brand of Bloomberg Media, announced its newest suite of corporate sponsors today, as well as the launch of its latest initiative, the Bloomberg Green Collective. Bloomberg Green, which premiered January 2020, explores business news in the climate-change era, like how Bitcoin mining in China is threatening climate goals. The launch of the sub-brand marked an early commitment from a U.S. media company to exclusively cover issues related to the environment, and it's seeing early success. Bloomberg Green's ad revenue increased 144% in its first year, and it has averaged 1.9 million monthly unique visitors across its first 12 months. Its newsletter, Green Daily, has doubled its audience year over year, leading the brand to add a Saturday edition beginning this month. Bloomberg Media’s overall digital ad revenue grew 15% in 2020, but the publisher didn't share specific figures. “Brands are increasingly seeing climate change as a vehicle to increase brand reputation and perceptions,” said Anne Kawalerski, the chief marketing officer of Bloomberg Media. “Bloomberg Green can really be the premier canvas for them to do that.” A wider cohort of advertisers is partnering with publishers on climate coverage, as concerns about its impact are becoming more mainstream. As such, publishers like the Financial Times, The New York Times and smaller outfits like Grist are generating revenue windfalls from advertising next to their green-focused content. The Green Collective brings together sustainability experts As part of its program, Bloomberg Green will have three meetings per year with sustainability experts and senior executives from its partner companies, JLL, General Motors, and Standard Chartered, to discuss key climate issues and the challenges they pose. Then, Bloomberg Media Studios will develop a piece of co-branded content that reflects the insights gleaned from the conversations. The first such production, The Power of Partnership, debuted today and explores challenges and opportunities surrounding the world of battery power and energy storage. This comes at a time when branded content revenue overall is growing for the publisher. Bloomberg Media Studios, the in-house production studio that creates branded content for Bloomberg advertisers, increased its total revenue 40% year-over-year in 2020. The publishers didn't share exact numbers. The popularity of the proprietary creative arm reflects the success Bloomberg has experienced in producing material that more deeply engages with its clients. Clients are seeing results Environmental reporting has historically been a highly politicized subject matter, leading some agencies to avoid advertising alongside it. Bloomberg Green has side-stepped the issue by striking partnerships with mission-aligned brands that are interested in growing their association with sustainability. Bloomberg offers its partners the progressive association of marketing alongside climate-change content, while ensuring their campaigns will reach a mainstream audience, said Alice Pickthall, a media analyst at Enders Analysis. "Bloomberg Green's appeal will be scale, as well as reaching the right people — in this case, business-oriented and climate-concerned individuals," Pickthall said. Advertisers are seeing results, according to the publisher. After one year of working with Bloomberg Green, one corporate partner experienced a 71% jump in the awareness of its sustainable business practices, said Kawalerski. When survey respondents were asked to list companies they consider to be global climate leaders, four of the five founding partners of Bloomberg Green made the top 20. The brand has also avoided the divisive nature of climate-change coverage by leading with fact and data-based reporting. The Bloomberg Green website greets visitors with a dashboard that tracks carbon-dioxide particulate emissions, rising global temperatures and investment in sustainable initiatives. By focusing primarily on metrics, Bloomberg Green aims to present its climate-change coverage as politically neutral, an objective accounting rather than a partisan issue.

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Bloomberg Media's Green Collective Attracts Sponsors to Climate-Change Journalism

Advertising revenue for the initiative soared 144% in its first year

Mark Stenberg

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Mark Stenberg