Innovation Visual have always been dedicated to supporting the natural world. At the start of 2020, we re-evaluated the mission and vision for the company to formally include this in our business plan and to ensure that all employees, and every part of our journey, would reflect this important stance.
A big part of our vision is to make a positive contribution towards protecting the natural environment and this report will look into the numerous ways in which we have worked to monitor and improve our impact so far in 2020, and will look ahead to how we will expand upon this in the second half of the year and beyond.
Suffice to say that 2020 has not been a typical business year so far! We are very aware that our data may show reductions compared to previous years that have been significantly influenced by the global pandemic. However, we will discuss the impact of this event on our operations and the lessons we have learned alongside evaluating the processes and systems Innovation Visual had put in place for 2020.
At the beginning of 2020, Innovation Visual made the pledge to monitor our carbon footprint throughout the year, so that we can make efforts to reduce what output we can and offset what we can’t currently control or prevent.
Our mission is to be the leading digital marketing consultancy (by client results) that provides strategy to tactical implementation services in an on-going partnership approach and is a joy to work with and for.
Our vision is to be the digital marketing agency that people use as the best practice example in balancing the delivery of all of the following: client results, team wellbeing, growth, profitability, while also making a positive contribution to the natural environment.
We have measured the number of work-related journeys each month, for all of our employees, including commuting and traveling to meetings and events by various means.
January shows a high number of kilometres as two members of staff flew to Toronto to meet a new client and to carry out the onboarding meeting. As such, it is believed that February is likely to be more representative of our normal travelling activity. We will be able to comment further on this as we gather more data over the following months and years.
This data clearly demonstrates the impact of the UK lockdown measures on our commuting activity.
By 16th March 2020, all members of the Innovation Visual team were working from home, and other than the occasional necessary trip to collect office equipment and later, as lockdown measures were relaxed, to work individually in the office or on an as needed basis in a socially distanced manner - everyone has remained working from home. As lockdown measures have reduced, more work-related travel has taken place. However, we are dedicated to keeping this to a minimum to keep our carbon dioxide output as low as possible.
We have been measuring our waste output and recycling. To both better evaluate our output, we have been splitting this not only into recyclable and non-recyclable, but also, recyclable and non-recyclable plastic and food waste. The figures tell an interesting story:
Throughout the 6 months we have produced the following
Total bin loads of waste: 11.7, of which 4.3 went to landfill. 6 were recycled and .66 was food waste.
The above chart looks positive as more than half of our waste has gone to recycling. When we dig a little deeper however, it is clear that we still have work to do. Our plastic waste has been measured by weight, and in 6 months we have produced .77kg of plastic that cannot be recycled. This may not seem to be much but is 1 entire bin load by volume. This appears to have been comprised mainly of film and sheet packaging, and also crisp and biscuit packets.
0.695kg of plastic has been sent to be recycled. This means that 17% of all of our waste, recycled and landfill, was plastic and even recycled plastic has a limited useable lifespan.
Examining the plastic waste, it would appear that the majority of the items are being produced by work purchases and packaging. Deliveries, post and other online orders were still being received at the office during lockdown and each of these came with packaging which was largely plastic or unrecyclable.
We can do better, and we will reduce this proportion significantly in the coming months.
We have monitored our paper purchases by weight in the first half of 2020.
Producing 100,000 sheets of A4 paper (499kg) from new sources requires over 8 trees and has a ‘life-cycle carbon footprint’ of 6 tonnes of CO2. This includes the process of creating the paper and disposing of it 8 times (as on average paper can be recycled about 7 times).
Based on these figures we calculate that our purchases of 36.6kg of paper had an environmental cost of 439.2kg of CO2:
Our paper purchases have fallen significantly since April, with Q2 demonstrating purchases each below the monthly average of 6.1kg. We are dedicated to reducing our paper usage and have invested in signature software for documents both coming into and out of the company to reduce our printing. We have also printed fewer documents, as we are able to share these easily over video calls, further reducing our consumption of printer paper.
At Innovation Visual we are passionate about protecting wildlife. As part of our commitment to the preservation of the natural world, Innovation Visual joined 1% for the Planet in 2012 and volunteer to donate a minimum of 1% of our annual turnover to environmental causes every year. These donations are taken from the company profits, so that our clients are not impacted by increased prices.
The Innovation Visual Directors have been donating to David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation (DSWF) on a personal basis for many years, so it was no surprise that this was the first charity we chose to support through our 1% for the Plant membership donations.
David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation funds projects in Asia and Africa which work to protect endangered wild mammals through, conservation programmes, education initiatives and through fighting against wildlife crime. Their fundraising goes directly to support anti-poaching and conservation projects which are directly involved in the survival of these vulnerable animals, including tigers, rhinos, painted dogs and snow leopards.
In addition to regular donations, in early 2020 Innovation Visual donated time 100% free of charge to rebuild the DSWF website to support their fundraising efforts. This labour of love was a massive success as more than £12,000 was raised in the first afternoon after launch!
A little closer to home, Innovation Visual are proud corporate sponsors of the Amphibian and Reptile Conservation Trust (ARC Trust). This UK-based charity works nationally and internationally to protect and conserve native species of reptiles and amphibians, through education and conservation, to protect our natural world.
Previously it was common practice, and indeed considered best practice, to travel to the workplace of new clients to meet them face to face and to carry out the on-boarding meeting. Since lockdown, we have learned how to conduct incredibly successful meetings remotely, with both new and existing clients, partners and suppliers!
We will continue to conduct meetings and calls virtually over the internet whenever possible. This move has been welcomed by our clients, who have given highly positive feedback and embraced this way of communicating as the new norm. The Innovation Visual team has thrown themselves into remote working and found that productively and efficiency has actually increased since they have been working from home!
We have always tried to be conscious of how much paper we use and to not print frivolously. Simply knowing how much CO2 we are producing by using paper has spurred us on to reduce this even further!
Recycled paper has a life-cycle carbon footprint of 47% that of ‘new’. From here on out, we will endeavour to cut down on our paper purchases and, when necessary, look to buy recycled paper. We have also invested in eSignature software to reduce our paper use and will be sending contracts and other documents by email for signing. We have also found that our paper usage has reduced in correlation with increase in virtual meetings as we are now sharing more documents over video calls rather than printing.
We will continue our efforts to reduce our waste output so that we can offset what we cannot mitigate in other ways.
As our team continues to work from home for the majority of their time, waste production should continue to decrease at the office. For unavoidable purchases we will make a concerted effort to be more conscientious about where we are buying from and the environmental impact of not only the items purchased, but the packaging and method of delivery.
Based on our travelling distance and paper consumption, here is our carbon footprint for the first half of 2020:
|
Activity |
CO2 Kg |
|
Travel |
5662.34 |
|
Paper |
439.2 |
|
TOTAL |
6401.54 |
