The Marketing Pod has celebrated its tenth anniversary this year – and since its launch in 2013, it has grown from a team of two ambitious founders to a bustling agency with dedicated specialists for strategy, content, PR, creative and digital.
But one thing has never changed: the Pod’s genuine commitment to the environment. Green isn’t just part of our logo, it’s part of our ethos. We work with ethical and sustainable businesses to help them promote what they are doing to bring about a greener tomorrow, and we do our very best to curb our own environmental footprint.
But what makes us a truly sustainable agency? To help organisations eager to get start a similar journey, we’ve shared the key areas on which we’ve been focusing for the past decade.
A dedicated green team
A few years ago, the Pod’s formed its own Team Green, assigning members of staff different responsibilities in our path to becoming a sustainable agency. For example, one person is regularly monitoring our electricity consumption, while another is on the lookout for green volunteering options our team can take part in.
We are also members of the SME Climate Hub, a global initiative that encourages small to medium enterprises to take action against climate change. Members of the SME Climate Hub are supporting each other to halve their carbon emissions by 2030 and become carbon neutral by 2050.
This is especially important because businesses with less than 500 employers represent 90% of business globally, so initiatives targeting SMEs can truly make a difference in getting as many people as possible involved.
A sustainable office
The Pod headquarters in Solihull are surrounded by green fields and old, majestic trees. This beautiful landscape makes us acutely aware of the importance of preserving our natural resources, and as a result, we’ve implemented some simple but effective initiatives to reduce our impact on the local ecosystem.
- The first is hybrid working, meaning that employees are encouraged to work from home when it’s not necessary to be in the office in person. In recent research, DecarboN8 found that working from home results in an overall average CO2 reduction of 17–60%1. So, our hybrid working policy will reduce the amount of carbon emissions from transportation attributable to our organisation under scope 3.
- We’ve also introduced a CSR and green transport policy, encouraging employees to use public transport or lift share when they do need to travel to the office or visit clients. Moreover, the Pod takes part in the Cycle to Work scheme, enabling our Podsters to save over 48% when buying a bike through a pre-tax salary sacrifice.
Finally, to further reduce the carbon emissions and waste produced by our headquarters, we have switched to a renewable energy contract, swapped office toiletries and consumables with sustainable or refillable alternatives, and made sure to use the recycling bins correctly.
Payments and pensions
As a sustainable agency, we’ve looked into all the areas of our business to find ways to become more Earth-friendly – even the most unlikely ones! For example, all of our Podsters have access to a green pension option, meaning that as part of our employee pension scheme, we help our team invest their retirement funds into a fossil-fuel-free climate index – the L&G PMC Fossil Fuel Free Climate Equality Index 3.
We’ve also joined the Stripe initiative, so any payments we receive provide a 0.5% donation directly to climate change initiatives through Stripe’s portfolio of carbon removal projects.
Our fantastic client portfolio
We’re genuinely proud to work with businesses who care about building a greener future, and who are developing cutting-edge solutions that will play a vital role in the net zero transition. We love being given the opportunity to create campaigns that can truly inspire people to be part of the green energy revolution.
For example, we’ve helped npower Business Solutions to develop a clear net zero proposition for its customers; supported the launch of Aceleron’s world-first circular economy battery; and produced engaging assets for Xoserve’s gas decarbonisation campaigns.
We believe each of our clients has a powerful message to spread when it comes to sustainability, so we use our marketing expertise to help them tackle some of the great science communication challenges of our times. We work with them to change public attitudes, influence business and policymakers, and drive investment into the green economy.
We’re proud of the work we’ve done to make ourselves a green agency, and have learned that there are possibilities to reduce our carbon footprint in all areas of our business – from our working policies and pension schemes, to the people and businesses we choose to work with.
But our sustainability journey doesn’t end here. We’re always looking for new ways to boost sustainability and cut carbon emissions. So let us know what you’re doing – we can all learn from each other!
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