How Can I Make My Agency More Sustainable?

• So, you want to make your agency more eco-friendly…
• …but where do you start? And how much is it going to cost you?
• In this session, Alex Holliman shares his ‘little and often’ approach to sustainable agency practices, while Katie Parry expands on the idea of greener web development

“What are you doing to make your agency more sustainable?”

Today, it’s inevitable one of your partners or suppliers is going to turn around and ask you this question.

If you’re not already doing something, what can you do about it?

“I saw a post from another agency owner reflecting on Ecologi,” says Alex Holliman, managing director of Climbing Trees.

“You basically input information about your business and team, and it calculates how much carbon you generate,” he says. “That was the first thing I did.”

“I then probably went away for a few months and felt quite good about being some sort of environmental hero, whilst having actually changed nothing.”

Alex eventually decided to get more information from other people in his shoes. This led him to look towards B-Corp accreditation.

“The process allowed me to double down on making foundational changes in the business that actually have real meaning,” he says.

“I genuinely think that environmental concerns should be at the heart of what we do as a business, as a country, and as a species. Every decision we make as a human will have an impact on the environment – whether you recognise it or not.”

Katie Parry started her journey from a similar place. 

She wanted her agency Supercool to become more sustainable – but had no idea where to begin.

“I started feeling a bit guilty about, you know, the world burning,” she laughs. “So, we started planting trees for every website that we launched for a client.”

“Then I realised, ‘Actually, this is a bit naff’. Planting a tree is nice, but it seems a little bit like greenwashing because we haven’t got any data behind it.”

Much like Alex, Katie enrolled in a course by BIMA to determine her agency’s carbon footprint (there is now a similar course offered by FutureLearn). This helped her calculate the carbon footprint of each project they delivered.

Now, Supercool have made multiple pledges on their website, and are looking into how they can influence others to follow suit.

“The more people talk about it and share ideas about what you can do, what’s worked and what hasn’t worked, hopefully the more difference we can all make,” says Katie.

Come along to find out the small steps you can take to make your agency more sustainable and listen to real life experiences from those who have tried.