SEC Newgate UK: Award-winning approach of a Communications Agency

At a glance
Who: SEC Newgate
What: Communications
When: Ongoing
Where: UK
Why: To help shine a light on sustainable practices

The challenge: 

Communicating sustainability has a narrow pathway for success, be too vague and fail to translate the jargon and you may run the risk of greenwashing, but detailing too much technical information is unlikely to capture your target audience. 

The Solution: 

SEC Newgate has dedicated itself to becoming a leading communications firm operating within the green economy, focusing on advocacy and research to broaden engagement and raise awareness on sustainability challenges and opportunities.  

How they work: 

SEC Newgate has a dedicated Green & Good team that works with organisations to define, articulate, and communicate their environmental and social purpose and impact in a bid to offer transparent and authentic campaigns and information to relevant audiences. 

SEC Newgate has set up an Ethics Committee that assesses all new potential clients and briefs for signs of potential greenwashing or purpose-washing. Internally, staff are trained and updated on ethical practices, including whistleblowing policies.  

The organisation also offers an integrated service, featuring a team of expert advisors to help deliver tailored content. This means that they can support organisations and clients on everything across the communications spectrum, including financial communications and investor relations, media relations, market research, community engagement, digital outreach and advocacy / public affairs.  

SEC Newgate’s Green & Good team also has experts across all areas of the green economy, with a focus on corporate purpose, so they can give specialist advice to organisations on their transition from profit-centric business models to new strategies that equally prioritise positive social and environmental impact 

SEC Newgate is very much plugged into the net-zero ecosystem, having managed high-profile campaigns at both COP26 and COP27, as well as running and delivering its own, bespoke event schedule focused on an array of green issues.  

On COPs, SEC Newgate was able to curate a “Talking COP” networking hub in the Green Zone at COP27 in Egypt in 2022, which was filled with a calendar of live and virtual events featuring high-level speakers ranging from Grant Shapps MP, Eric Usher, Charlie Ogilvie and Julia Groves. 

Talking COP delivered 13 discussions, including 8 live panel events, 10 podcasts and 30 vox pops guest interviews in Egypt and welcomed 30 high profile guests to the stand.  

As well as working on high profile campaigns that support the net zero transition, SEC Newgate seeks to understand and support sustainable business through its annual global survey of over 12,000 people – The ESG Monitor – which acts as a timely temperature check for corporates to re-examine their approaches to sustainability. 

The results: 

There are many case studies that we can look at to examine SEC Newgate, and notable clients include the Green Finance Institute, JLEN Environmental Assets, Good Energy, Tevva, EDF Renewables. But the Hello Hydrogen campaign certainly stands out. 

SEC Newgate developed ‘Hello Hydrogen’ to communicate that hydrogen is a viable low-carbon alternative to natural gas – a timely discussion given the rising costs in the latter. SEC Newgate also wanted to showcase how hydrogen could secure the UK’s future energy supply and that hydrogen boilers were both easy to install and safe. 

The result was the Hello Hydrogen campaign, which saw SEC Newgate create a bespoke website, commenced an advertising campaign across social media and secured Rachel Riley as the face of the campaign. SEC Newgate delivered 192 pieces of print and broadcast coverage with a reach of more than 500 million. 

Between December 2022 and February 2023 SEC Newgate’s Facebook posts for Hello Hydrogen had 3,301,782 impressions and have helped to shift the dial on conversations around hydrogen. 

The organisation: 

SEC Newgate is committed to being net-zero by 2030, and aims to further support the transition to net-zero by working with clients seeking positive environmental outcomes. The organisation is currently in the final stages of B Corp verification, showcasing its commitment to purpose, society and the planet. 

The judges said: 

“The entry demonstrated real thought leadership with the range of campaigns that they have been working on, from their ESG monitor report to other high profile campaigns like Bankers for Net-Zero. They have achieved impressive cut throughs to make net-zero part of the mainstream media conversation. They are also walking the talk as well, with improvements in their own operations and B-Corps journey.”