A proactively manic autumn, and no headless chickens in sight!
Every year, the summer slide into autumn seems to happen faster and faster… At KW HQ, this year September and October were nothing short of manic - but proactively manic rather than headless chicken manic.
September and October saw the team attend even more events and workshops than ever; time we see as a reinvestment in ourselves and the agency in order to support our clients and other businesses who have an aspiration to be more sustainable.
What was on the agenda?
- Net Zero Workshop - Low Carbon Lincolnshire, Market Rasen Race Course
- Decarbonisation Workshop - Low Carbon Lincolnshire, Market Rasen Race Course
- Prosperity, Potential, Planet: Solutions for your business, International Bomber Command Centre
- Sustainability: Beyond Buzzwords - Grimsby Community Energy, Hampton by Hilton Humberside Airport
- VHEY Tourism Conference, MKM Stadium
- Place Lab - Scunthorpe Tomorrow, Oasis Community Space
- People, Planet, Pastry - Small99, Gusto Group
Over the last two months, the main conversation point was environmental sustainability but with a particular focus on NetZero, decarbonisation and energy efficiency.
Social sustainability too was brought up quite a lot, which is encouraging. That said, most people still associate the ‘S’ word with the physical environment rather than the human side of the planet but we’re definitely going in the right direction!
On the flip side, economic sustainability is always on people’s minds, especially in business. Although it is rarely discussed in the same breath as our environmental and social responsibility, a sustainability hat-trick that Jack Stein pulled off incredibly well during his talk at the VHEY Tourism Conference.
For the past couple of years, we’ve known that putting our flag in the ground with our ‘people and planet first’ mantra will only last so long before it will be the default for all businesses, and therefore marketing agencies, but in all honesty, that point seems further away than we initially thought. Are we happy about that? No. Why? Well, because like most consciously minded folk out there, we’d rather the planet were “fixed” sooner, and as an agency, we’re focused on rowing our own boat here, so it doesn’t really matter where the rest of the agency world is positioning itself.
Head Honch Alex has been out and about much more too: “I love talking to people about what they’re doing to make their business more environmentally conscious. Unsurprisingly, it seems that for a business to be more environmentally conscious, the leadership has to be, too.
“There’s so much more going on than you think. Countless, little pockets of activity are growing, coming together and building a much larger and more influential momentum. To have 30 people in a room at People, Planet, Pastry for example - and that wasn’t entirely down to Vine’s Bakery’s amazing pastries - on a Wednesday afternoon in Collingham shows that people really do want to get together and talk about ideas to make their respective businesses better; I don’t think anyone in that room was selling what they do to anyone else, it was lots of great conversations, ideas and some potential partnerships flourishing. I’m looking forward to the evening event, but with a pint instead of a pastry, in Lincoln on 19th Nov (https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/lincoln-small99s-people-planet-pinttm-sustainability-meetup-tickets-912090456107)!”
Making your business more aware of the impact it has takes time and therefore money. It might not be a direct cost but it does take you away from directly driving revenue, although we know from talking to clients that what we’re doing is important to them, and the way we’re helping them shape their brand messaging is delivering tangible benefits to their bottom line…phew!
Case in point, the Place Lab was delivered by Scunthorpe Tomorrow. That event genuinely demonstrated how important it is for a town to be sustainable in its outlook and that there are (in fact) a lot of people who care about that and are willing to give up their time in support. The Place Lab itself was a fantastic day, which absolutely had nothing to do with Alex hosting the event, but rather it was brilliant to see the investment people had and continue to have in what is going on in the town and how they can help. Not only was there an incredibly broad range of backgrounds in the room but the two people at the helm, Rob and Ty, did their job in inspiring every single person in the room, their passion about what the town’s future could and should be was authentic, and contagious. We cannot wait to see how Scunthorpe Tomorrow unfolds and continue to support its cause, as well as show our faces at various events throughout the UK too - every day’s a school day after all, right?
