Sustainability – Dotdigital https://dotdigital.com Wed, 14 Feb 2024 14:40:38 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.3.2 https://mkr1en1mksitesap.blob.core.windows.net/staging/2021/11/favicon-61950c71180a3.png Sustainability – Dotdigital https://dotdigital.com 32 32 Dotdigital and Provenance partner for sustainable marketing solutions https://dotdigital.com/blog/dotdigital-provenance-partner-sustainable-marketing/ Mon, 04 Sep 2023 10:48:45 +0000 https://dotdigital.com/?p=60660 At Dotdigital, we’re committed to providing solutions that not only empower your marketing efforts but also align with your sustainability values. That’s why we’re excited to announce our new partnership with Provenance, a global leader in sustainability marketing technology. Through this collaboration, we aim to support retailers in their sustainability efforts and help shoppers make informed, environmentally friendly choices.

Partnering for sustainable marketing

Provenance is on a mission to give consumers the info they need to make buying decisions that benefit both people and the planet. Their innovative platform helps retailers share credible, trustworthy social and environmental impact details where it matters most – at the point of sale.

As the first (and only) carbon-neutral cross-channel marketing automation platform out there, we’re a perfect fit for Provenance’s values. We’re also ISO-14001 accredited – which means we meet the International Standard Organisation’s requirements for environmental management systems. This makes Dotdigital the go-to choice for sustainability-minded brands looking to reduce their carbon footprint.

Tink Taylor, Founder & of Dotdigital, said it best, “I’m always supremely impressed by the Dotdigital committees such as DotGreen, DotDEI and DotWellbeing. It’s our employees’ voices who push initiatives like becoming carbon-neutral and ISO-14001 certified forward. And it keeps Dotdigital striving for a more positive impact socially and environmentally. We’re very proud to be the first and only carbon-neutral marketing automation platform.”

Jessi Baker, Founder & CEO of Provenance, added: “Together, we’ll help companies on their path to sustainability, aiming for a future where every purchase helps people and our planet.”

Working together for a greener future

Our partnership with Provenance is all about helping consumers make greener, more sustainable choices. We’re joining forces to support retailers that are serious about their sustainability claims and environmental responsibilities. This means helping companies use marketing technology that matches their mission and nudges customers toward more ethical purchasing decisions. Together, we’re paving the way for informed, earth-friendly shopping choices. Keep your eyes peeled for more news, tips, and insights about this exciting partnership. As a team, we’ll make a real difference for people, the planet, and the world of digital marketing.

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Earth Day at Dotdigital https://dotdigital.com/blog/earth-day-at-dotdigital/ Fri, 22 Apr 2022 08:02:26 +0000 https://dotdigital.com/?p=34328

Earth Day at Dotdigital

Illustration of sunflowerrs with text 'happy earth day, dotsunflower'
At Dotdigital we are passionate about fighting the climate crisis. We’ve been working hard these past few years to reduce our own carbon footprint, as although it’s everyone’s responsibility to make changes, businesses especially have a big responsibility.


What we’re already doing

We’re proud to be the first and only marketing automation platform that is carbon neutral, but we aren’t leaving it there. We have also pledged to be net zero by the end of our financial year in 2030, twenty years ahead of the timeline set out by the Paris agreement.

We’ve also made changes in other areas, instead of corporate gifting last year we planted 12,500 seeds to grow into trees, and we continue to add to our Dotforest when we can, which now has over 22,000 trees planted.


Dotsunflower initiative

This Earth Day we asked some of our customers and partners if they’d like to join us in planting sunflowers this Earth Day, to all those that said yes we’ve sent out some seeds for planting. To do this we used ReachDesk, who are a carbon neutral company themselves.

A small gesture, but one we hope encourages us all to get outside more and enjoy the natural beauty of our planet. If you didn’t spot our email but would like to get some seeds, you can fill in our form here and we’ll get some seeds sent out to you too.


Why sunflowers?

A sunflower at sunset

Sunflowers, as well as looking pretty, also provide food for wild birds and are a firm favorite for under-threat British bees to get their pollen. They’re a great choice if you’re looking to plant something hardy.

The sunflower is one of the most resilient flowers there is. Did you know sunflowers can absorb toxic heavy metal contaminants and poisonous chemicals in the soil? Making them an excellent choice to grow anywhere with less than ideal soil. Sunflowers can grow in the desert, salt marshes, and of course, your back garden.

Sunflowers have shown interesting developments in recent years, with scientists exploring their adaptation to changing weather patterns. The sunflower has shows signs of adapting to the change in climate, and may well be the flower that outlasts us all if climate change continues. Let’s hope we don’t find out.



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Net-zero by 2030 https://dotdigital.com/blog/net-zero-by-2030/ Wed, 13 Apr 2022 09:00:27 +0000 https://dotdigital.com/?p=34036

Net-zero by 2030

net zero spelled out on scrabble tiles in front of lgreen eaves

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an authoritative group of climate experts, issued their starkest warning yet this month that we are dangerously close to running out of time to mitigate the worst impacts of the climate crisis and ecological emergency.

Dotdigital is listening, so we have committed to becoming net-zero by 2030.


What are we doing at Dotdigital?

In December 2020, Dotdigital became the first carbon neutral, ISO 14001 certified marketing automation platform in the world.

At Dotdigital, we’re engaging with the science to make sure everything we are doing is the right thing. We understand that as a business, we have the power to help with the changes needed to address the climate crisis, and we will not be shrinking away from that responsibility.

On top of our existing actions, we have committed to being net-zero by 2030. That means we will systematically eliminate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions sources at Dotdigital so that only residual emissions – necessary to continue business operations – remain by 2030. We will make sure to offset those residual emissions with high-quality GHG removal projects.

In other words, we’re looking to meet the requirements of the Paris Agreement 20 years ahead of schedule.


What does “net-zero” actually mean?

Becoming “net-zero” means going above-and-beyond our carbon neutral status. It’s sort of like “carbon neutral plus”. In meeting the requirements of net-zero, we meet and exceed the requirements of being carbon neutral.

It means we will:

  1. Reduce our absolute gross GHG emissions to only “residual” levels.
  2. Continue to measure and offset our Scope 1, 2, and 3 GHG emissions.
  3. Offset all residual emissions with GHG removal projects.

There are a few things to make explicit about the above. When we say “we’re engaging with the science”, we mean it, and we believe we’re accountable for our claims and actions. So we want to be explicit about what we’re aiming for and how we know whether we’ve succeeded.


Absolute emissions vs emissions intensity

First is that we are aiming to reduce our absolute gross GHG emissions. This means the total amount of GHG emissions to the atmosphere from our business activities will decrease to residual levels.

This is in contrast to reducing our emissions intensity, which is often measured as the GHG emissions per $1000 revenue or similar proportional metric. It’s entirely possible for absolute gross GHG emissions to go up while emissions intensity goes down, which doesn’t help towards the world’s climate goals.


GHG emissions scopes

When we count our GHG emissions, we count them in three separate categories, referred to as “scopes”.

Scope 1 includes our emissions due to heating our offices with fossil fuels. Scope 2 includes our emissions due to electricity use in our offices. Scope 3 includes all other indirect emissions, which are the emissions in our supply chain and due to other business activities not included above.

To be carbon neutral, a company only needs to offset scopes 1 and 2. To be net-zero, a company also needs to include scope 3. Dotdigital already does this for major scope 3 sources, so we’re well on our way to being net-zero.


Removal vs reduction projects

The final additional requirement reflects the Oxford Offsetting Principles that we already follow to guide our offsetting decisions. This is that we must offset all residual emissions with GHG removal projects, not just GHG reduction projects.

GHG removal projects draw GHGs directly from the atmosphere and sequester them for a meaningful amount of time; preferably permanently (for all practical purposes), but for hundreds or thousands of years at a minimum.


How will Dotdigital get to net-zero?

All of the above complexity and nuances can be simplified to the table below, which shows how Dotdigital is making progress from being “carbon neutral” to being “net-zero”.

Requirement
Carbon neutral
Dotdigital now
Net-zero
Measure scope 1 and 2
check mark
check mark
check mark
Offset scope 1 and 2
check mark
check mark
check mark
Measure scope 3
multiplication sign
check mark
check mark
Offset scope 3
multiplication sign
check mark
check mark
Reduce absolute emissions to residual
multiplication sign
multiplication sign
check mark
Offset with removal projects
multiplication sign
multiplication sign
check mark
Justify residual emissions
multiplication sign
multiplication sign
check mark

 

There are lots of things that we’re considering at Dotdigital to get us to the column on the right.

We’re:

  • Switching our offices to use only renewable energy.
  • Making technical changes to our service infrastructure so it relies only on renewable energy.
  • Thinking about how we can apply some of the lessons we’ve learned during the pandemic about flexible working to reduce our GHG emissions e.g. by taking fewer business flights and using virtual collaboration tools instead.
  • Carefully choosing suppliers that share our environmental goals.
  • Starting to research which GHG removal projects we should help fund.

And we have many other ideas too.


How is being net-zero helping above being carbon neutral?

Being carbon neutral is not sufficient to meet the commitments of the Paris Agreement and limit global heating to no more than 1.5C. Becoming net-zero means we should prioritize not producing GHG emissions ahead of offsetting GHG emissions. In other words, offsetting should be a last resort.

This reflects the current scientific understanding that natural systems respond differently to emitting and then removing the same amount of GHG emissions, compared to having never emitted those GHGs in the first place.


Why is net-zero important to Dotdigital?

A heavy burden rests on national governments to legislate and regulate, but corporations and other organizations can listen to the IPCC’s advice and act quickly and decisively without being made to.

We’re hoping that our actions today will mean that future generations can continue to enjoy Nature in the way that we have and live prosperous lives free of climate disaster.

By choosing Dotdigital as your customer engagement platform you’re reducing your emissions footprint. You can read more about this here.

And with us moving to net-zero, you can be confident that we’ll continue to exceed growing customer expectations when it comes to the environment.



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Sustainability and environmentalism https://dotdigital.com/blog/sustainability-and-environmentalism/ Fri, 04 Mar 2022 09:00:09 +0000 https://dotdigital.com/?p=30888

Trends briefing

Sustainability and environmentalism

Sustainable business practices

Sustainability is not a passing fancy. It’s not a buzzword or a tick-box activity. It is at the top of the agenda for businesses, marketers, and consumers alike.  

As a mainstream concern, the importance of sustainability and environmentalism cannot be overlooked. It is the subject of discussion everywhere, from the water cooler to the White House. Its meteoric rise has resulted in businesses having to look inwards and truly consider their impact on the planet. Brands that embrace sustainability today and review and update their business practices will get ahead of the curve in 2022. 

So, let’s dive into this new trend: 


What is sustainability?

Simply put, sustainability refers to the ability to meet your specific needs without compromising the ability of future generations to do the same. This is not just about natural resources but also includes social and economic resources. As a result, as well as being concerned with environmentalism, issues around social equality and economic development are also embedded in the ethos of sustainable living. 


What is environmentalism?

Environmentalism is the part of sustainable living that has rooted itself in the public consciousness. It is concerns and actions aimed at protecting the environment. With fears about global warming and the impact of our carbon footprint on the Earth, people are demanding clear and actionable environmentalist policies from governments and businesses alike.  


What does it mean to be a sustainable business?

Being a sustainable business extends beyond the “obvious” sustainability concerns. It’s more than just the carbon footprint of shipping products or the waste created by physical products. Not every impact of your business is tangible.  

Digital businesses, virtual events, online interactions – they all have an effect on the environment. Everything digital is powered by energy and therefore generates emissions. Similarly, associated activities like travel and office waste can also be tracked. All carbon emissions need to be tracked to understand your business’s impact and plan steps to counteract it. 

Take Dotdigital as an example, we’ve taken great efforts to ensure our global business operates sustainably. That included ensuring our offices, cloud services, and data centers are carbon neutral and powered by renewable energy. As a result, every email, SMS, push, and display ad that’s sent via Dotdigital is sustainable, helping all our clients get one step closer to achieving their sustainability goals. 

There are a lot of new tools emerging to help businesses calculate their total carbon impact. Carbon calculators such as the one created by AdGreen can help you calculate the carbon footprint of your digital ad activity. Scope3 is a corporation aiming to assess and reduce the environmental impact of digital ad production with a particular focus on “scope 3” carbon emissions generated by partners in your supply chain.  

There’s still a long way to go before completely sustainable practices become commonplace, but digital industries such as marketing and advertising are being offered more and more tools to understand their impact. By embracing them today, the digital and online branches of your brand can demonstrate their commitment to eco-conscious action and raise the bar for wider teams and industries.  


What are businesses doing?

Back in November 2020, a partnership between the British Advertising Association, Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA), and the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers (ISBA) launched a brand-new initiative called ‘Ad Net Zero’. Its goal is to “achieve real net-zero carbon emissions from the development, production, and media placement of advertising by the end of 2030”.  

A report released to support the launch of this initiative estimated that the UK’s ad industry alone exceeds 84,000 tons of CO2e per year. That means that the carbon footprint of the global advertising industry could be over a million tons.  

It’s not just marketing and advertising making these kinds of pledges. Striking a balance between legislative requirements and consumer expectations, the automotive industry is driving towards its sustainable future. Ford Motor Company is aiming to be completely carbon neutral by 2050, while Volvo has made a similar pledge to achieve its goal by 2040.  

Car brands all over the world are investing in technology and sustainable supply chains to be able to provide consumers with 100% electric vehicles.  

The beauty industry, widely renowned for generating a significant amount of plastic waste from product containers and packaging, is also making headway towards becoming more sustainable. A consortium of industry heavyweights is teaming up to set industry-wide sustainability standards. Plans to develop a scoring system where shoppers can be able to compare and contrast the environmental impact of cosmetic products will empower them to make more environmentally friendly decisions.  

The key takeaway here is that collective action is essential for the success of wide-reaching sustainability. Sharing learning and working together will help businesses all over the world achieve the environmental goals consumers are demanding.  


Taking it seriously

Increased awareness of environmental issues has sadly led to an increase in “greenwashing”. That is, communicating false or misleading information about how a business’s products, aims, and policies are more environmentally friendly than they are.  

Fortunately, associations like the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) are on hand, looking after the public’s best interest. The ASA has officially announced that it will be launching inquiries into sustainability claims and will research ‘carbon neutral’ and ‘net zero’ claims made in ads. Ultimately, greenwashing in marketing and advertising will be harder, so to reap the benefits, brands have to put the work in.  

Another indication of the seriousness and longevity of this trend came with a recent update to Google’s Ads Policy. It has now prohibited advertising for, and the monetization of, content that promotes climate change denialism. While to most this may seem logical, it could preclude further action being taken against brands misrepresenting their eco-credentials. 

Ultimately, it’s not possible to approach this trend half-heartedly. Public pressure is ensuring governments and business take their demands seriously. Thankfully, there are an increasing number of resources around to help brands as they transition to sustainable business practices. Similarly, brands that have already grappled with the issue are willing to help others take the meaningful steps required to get ahead of the curve.

The sooner businesses embrace sustainability and environmentalism, the greater success they will have in the future.  



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Innovation and creativity at Dotdigital https://dotdigital.com/blog/innovation-and-creativity-at-dotdigital/ Mon, 31 Jan 2022 08:59:30 +0000 https://dotdigital.com/?p=29062

Innovation and creativity at Dotdigital

Image of program developer

Hack week is an annual celebration of creativity and innovation at Dotdigital. It’s an opportunity for our engineering teams to step away from the ordinary and build something outside of the norm. A time to use new technology, with different people, to improve things (and a good reason not to write unit tests, if only for a short while)!  

We give a flexible mandate to the teams by asking them what they could do to the Dotdigital application, processes, or practices to make them faster🚀, friendlier🤗, greener🌳, smarter📚, easier😌, or a bit more fun🎉. 

We’ve had a lot of great hacks in the past and many of them have made their way into the app. Transactional email started as a hack back in 2014 and dark mode was a hack last year, both of which are now firm favorites in the Dotdigital platform today.  


This year's entries

Launch Dotly

Team “Masala Steak” made up of Luke van Blerk, Agata Jezewska, Weronika Kucharska, Amiena Allie, Piotr Nowakowski and Pedro Mateus. 

Releasing new features to customers is a tough thing to get right. Who do you invite for feedback? How do you manage the rollout? Masala Steak’s idea was to improve feature management in Dotdigital by creating cohorts to group accounts and enable features. 

Hack week demo of Launch Dotly

Low carbon campaigns

Team “Green Hat Hackers” made up of Ash George, Alex Webber, Brayan Blanco, Wayne Parker, and Adhir Ramjiawan. 

We’re always looking at ways to reduce the carbon footprint of our platform and this hack gave email campaign senders the option to send their campaign at a time when electricity and gas supply data shows the highest percentage of renewable energy. 

How to send low carbon campaigns

That’s a bit graph-ic

Team “There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things” made up of Danny Rendle, Fanis Strezos, Kelvin Hiorns, and Dylan Viranyi. 

Our current API is great, but with the rising trend of GraphQL, this team looked into how we could add a GraphQL layer over our platform. 

Segment Visualizer

Team “Edgelords” made up of Dave Russell and Grant Lodge 

Segmentation is a powerful tool for marketers and Dotdigital supports this in a variety of ways. The goal of this hack was to utilize graphs in order to give a more insightful and detailed overview of how customer segments are made up. 

Segment visualizer

Dotty and the tooltips

Team “Binary tree caterpillars” made up of Andrei Constantin, Tom Westwood, Darya Yemzhina, Pablo Miletich, and Mubin Chachia. 

Our in-app help articles and support docs are already awesome, but what if there was another way to present tips to our users? This hack aimed to create a friendly tooltip dispenser called Dotty (anyone remember Clippy???) to present automated tooltips to users. 

Dotty and the tooltips

Better databag keys

Team “Unexpected item in the databag area” made up of Simon Capewell, Andrew Morozov, Joe Webb, David Goodwin, and Tomasz Bursztynski. 

Behind the scenes, settings and configuration options can be hard to manage. This team looked into ways we could improve our existing settings editor into something more descriptive and easier to use. 

Quote from Dave

Project Armadillo Trousers

Team “Oh god how did this get in here I am not good with computers” made up of Jennie Long, Crystal Preston, and Rikki Gullick. 

We use NPS scores to gauge engineer happiness, maybe you do for your customers too? This hack tried to make collating NPS data as easy as possible. Investigating ways to integrate data capture into our Pages and Forms tool and be able to report on the data in an insightful way. Example of NPS visualizer


Winners

  • Best video demo: Team Armadillo trousers

  • Most valuable idea – Dotty and the tooltips
  • Most innovative – Segment visualizer 
  • CPTO award – Launch Dotly 
  • Best team name – Oh god how did this get in here I am not good with computers 
  • Best hack of 2021 – Better databag keys 


Thanks

Many thanks to everyone that helped make hack week 2021 a success! If you’d like to get involved in this sort of thing, then head over to our careers page and see how we can help. Don’t forget that you can see what’s coming up for Dotdigital and submit your ideas on how we could improve the platform by checking out our roadmap. 



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Sustainability | Dotdigital nonadult
Gifting a DotForest https://dotdigital.com/blog/gifting-a-dotforest/ Mon, 17 Jan 2022 09:00:26 +0000 https://dotdigital.com/?p=28308

Gifting a DotForest

Trees in a forest

Holiday gifting

This year our EMEA team did something a little different when it came to holiday gifting. We wanted to say thank you to all of our wonderful clients, partners, and prospects for being a part of our community this past year, but we also wanted our gifting to make a positive impact and reflect our company’s sustainability values, so we had to think outside the box.

Enter Ecologi. A fantastic charity that supports global tree planting projects. Research shows that tree planting – when done right – is one of the most effective climate crisis solutions available right now, so it was a no-brainer. We donated the money we’d have spent on gifts to Ecologi, who then planted trees on our behalf. This year’s holiday gifting campaign sowed the seeds of our Dotforest, planting enough seeds for a whopping 12,500 trees to grow! The trees have been planted in the most climate-effective places around the world. These include mangrove planting in Madagascar, Afromontane tree planting in Kenya, and forest restoration in Nicaragua and Uganda.

Our Dotforest is only at the beginning of its journey, and we plan to expand the forest by planting more and more trees over the coming months and years. If you want to show your support and get involved you can add to our forest, or start your own here.


Our pledge on climate change

At Dotdigital, we are constantly working to minimize our negative environmental impact and do our part in addressing the climate crisis and ecological emergency.

Ash George, Sustainability Lead at Dotdigital “Our green ambitions at Dotdigital reflect a simple truth: we must collectively learn a profound respect for nature if we wish for a prosperous future. We are making changes to our own business to this effect, but think also of the necessary systemic changes that we can influence.”

We are the world’s first, and the only carbon-neutral, ISO 14001 certified marketing automation platform. If you’re a Dotdigital customer and would like to shout about how your emails are carbon-neutral, we’ve already done the work, so you can celebrate and tell everyone about it – learn more here.

As well as being carbon neutral, we are committed to being net-zero by the end of our financial year in 2030 – a full 20 years ahead of the timeline set out in the Paris Agreement. So, it makes sense then, that our gifting reflects our beliefs, and supports the planet.


To a greener future

Choosing gifts everyone will enjoy is tricky, but if there’s one thing we are all invested in, it’s the future of our planet. Combating the climate crisis is an important issue for our staff and our customers alike. As climate change finds its way onto agendas around the world, we want to lead the way and help our customers and partners on their own journeys. We hope that you enjoy our new take on holiday gifting and that it may even inspire you in your own gifting in the future.

Here’s to a greener future.

 

 



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8 tips for making sustainable travel choices https://dotdigital.com/blog/8-tips-for-making-sustainable-travel-choices/ Wed, 30 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://dot.tiltedchair.co/8-tips-for-making-sustainable-travel-choices/ This felt like such a small thing at the time… But when I arrived at the hotel and saw all those miniature shampoo and conditioner bottles lined up ready for me, it hit me: my forgetfulness was going to lead directly to more landfill waste. On that trip I spent time thinking about what other sustainable choices we can make to reduce our footprint as travel becomes an option again. When I got home, I reached out to Anna, Sustainability Strategist and co-founder of The Purpose Agents. Together we came up with the below checklist. We understand that not all of this is going to be possible 100% of the time. But we hope this helps you identify areas where you can make a conscious choice to take more sustainable action.

Review your travel needs

First, Anna suggested reviewing whether that trip is necessary before committing to it. She explains: “Unfortunately in Australia business trips between major cities almost always involve taking a flight. The carbon footprint of one short return economy class flight from Sydney to Brisbane is 0.5 tons of CO2e, a quarter of the monthly carbon footprint of the average Australian. If the pandemic has proven one thing, it’s just how much is possible via Zoom! Doing meetings digitally is not only giving the environment a breather, but also saves valuable time!” Work out your carbon footprint here.

Offset your time in the air

If it’s important for you to make the trip and hop on a plane, please look into carbon offsetting your air travel. Many airlines will offer an attractively cheap offset as part of your ticket price. But rather than buying those, Anna recommends offsetting all flights taken by staff as part of a company-wide carbon offset at the end of the year and buying some quality certified carbon credits (e.g., Gold Standard) instead. “When doing so, this will ensure the carbon footprint is fully covered and the team can even choose which projects the company should support – yay!” Check out how to offset more than your carbon footprint, here.

Bring your toiletries

Toiletries – what kick-started this all for me. Where possible, do bring your own for overnight stays. You’ve likely already got your toothbrush and toothpaste, so I’d suggest putting these in a small bag with either a re-fillable travel bottle of your favorite products; or even better, look at solid shampoo and conditioner bars. 5 reasons to ditch to shampoo bottle. These take up less space, have a lower impact on the environment, don’t leak, and are often lighter than their water-filled counterparts. Some hotels are now committed to only providing refillable shampoo and conditioner, rather than the individual packages. But you really can’t rely on this being the case unless you research the chain. Marriot has been doing this for a couple of years now.

Reuse hotel towels

While you’re in the bathroom, look around for a sign that says what they will do with your towels. Many hotels will rewash towels, and sometimes linen, every day, unless you indicate that you’re happy to reuse. A typical room with 4 kg of laundry will require up to 60 liters of water, so take a second to see if you need to do anything to show that you’re happy to reuse.

Get those steps in

On some trips you’re likely to need to take private transport, but do consider your local public transport options. For me, it was easy enough to get from my hotel to the event on foot, and get home from the airport in Sydney on trains, rather than needing to take an entire taxi myself for the 20-minute trip, which can save up to 80% on your carbon emissions.

Don’t forget your keep cup

This one is easy for all types of trip: domestic, international, and local. Bring those reusable keep-cups, water bottles, and masks with you. We all forget things from time to time. But keeping your re-fillable drinks containers close at hand means you’re more likely to be able to save some cups and bottles from landfill. And don’t forget that the masks that airlines hand out (currently mandatory on flights in Aus) also often end up at the dump. If you do find yourself caught out, and need to take a disposable mask, remember to cut/tear those straps before it goes in the trash.

Love your vegetables

I met Anna over a supercharged vegan salad bowl at another local event, where we got chatting about the impact of vegan and vegetarian choices on the environment. So, it was no surprise to me that one of Anna’s key points is to consider are your diet choices, even when on a trip. Did you know that switching to a plant-based diet is one of the best ways to fight climate change? “Correct – a vegetarian diet is generating about half the carbon footprint as a carnivorous one (a vegan one even less!), so opting for the zoodles instead of the steak makes a real difference!”

Sharing is caring

Finally, ask around. There are loads of companies and individuals out there with fantastic tips of their own, and many passionate people looking to drive change from within their own business. Plus, there’s people like Anna, who have made it their job to help businesses on their sustainability journey. At dotdigital, we are proud to have received our ISO14001 certification earlier this year, with the ‘dotgreen’ team at the vanguard of the company’s environmental efforts. Full of passionate people across all teams, they’re eager to learn more and further reduce dotdigital’s impact. So please do get in touch below if you’ve got more tips to add!
Anna Forster is Co-Founder and Chief Sustainability Nerd at The Purpose Agents where she helps businesses drive change towards a more sustainable future. You can find her at: www.thepurposeagents.com]]>
Sustainable marketing for a greener future https://dotdigital.com/blog/sustainable-marketing-for-a-greener-future/ Thu, 22 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://dot.tiltedchair.co/sustainable-marketing-for-a-greener-future/ Sustainable marketing is no longer a pipedream. As marketers, we’ve heard a lot about conscious consumerism. Shoppers increasingly make purchase decisions based on the positive social, economic, and environmental impact of a brand. This shift in consumer behavior is driving marketers to look at the sustainability of their own practices. After all, we’re consumers too. We care about how our actions and the actions of our brands we trust impact the world around us. And that includes the brands we work for. As a result, marketers around the world are starting to look at their practices and shift their strategy towards sustainable marketing. At dotdigital, we’ve got green running through our veins. From day one we’ve been passionate about providing marketers with powerful alternatives to traditional direct marketing. Our own green journey has run in tandem with our commitment to deliver sustainable marketing solutions to our customers. Every step that we’ve taken to do our bit and protect the environment has resulted in us becoming the greenest automation platform on the market. That means that sustainable marketing is not a nice-to-have but truly achievable using our software.

The first steps towards a sustainable future

1999: seeing an opportunity for a greener future

Ellipsis Media was founded to drive digital transformation and become the greener alternative to traditional paper-based marketing (e.g. newsletters, brochures, door drops).

2001: aiding digital transformation with sustainable alternatives

Ellipsis Media (consisting of multiple entities including dotagency, dotseo, and dotcommerce) decided to focus its energy on growing its email provider platform: dotmailer. Through dotmailer, marketers were able to access an environmentally friendly channel to reach customers effectively and efficiently. Alongside dotmailer, Ellipsis Media launched more digital services to assist brands going through a digital transformation. This included the launch of dotsurvey which empowered marketers to digitize their data collection.

2015: empowering our people to drive organizational change

Fast forward fourteen years and dotdigital’s passionate employees officially form “dotcommunity” – a forum through which staff can promote the social, environmental, and economic change they want to see. It’s through the hard work and commitment of our people we were able to go through our own digital transformation. This included migrating the platform’s infrastructure from physical data centers to efficient cloud service providers. Our teams searched high and low to identify cloud providers with industry-leading green credentials, reinforcing our commitment to delivering sustainable solutions.

2019: setting the scene before going green

Following the acquisition of communication platforms Dynmark and Comapi, dotmailer underwent an extensive rebrand to become dotdigital. As part of this, our teams underwent another monumental digital transformation. This time we were migrating the physical elements of Dynmark and Comapi’s technology stack to our certified green cloud service providers. We also launched a large number of benefits to support our staff achieve their professional and personal goals. This included listening to feedback from the “dotcommunity” and increasing the number of paid volunteer days available for staff to use to help causes close to their hearts.

January 2020: a green collective consciousness

Various discussions about environmental sustainability taking place throughout the company serendipitously came together to form dotdigital’s collective green consciousness. With support and energy behind the movement emerging from all areas of the business, dotdigital’s leadership team looked at the UK’s Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting (SECR) and Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS). The overall aim of these pieces of legislation is to reduce emissions and monitor companies’ energy data. This helped us build our own framework to reduce our emissions and energy usage with the ultimate goal of becoming carbon-neutral in 2021.

March 2020: committing to change

To back up our commitment to sustainable business, we decided to pursue getting ISO 14001 certified. This is designed to help control environmental aspects, reduce impact, and ensure legal compliance to an international standard. Teaming up with Blackmores Consultancy, we began a high-level review of our existing practices and documentation and compared them to the requirements of ISO 14001. Performing this gap analysis helped us understand how we could achieve our green goals and where we needed to concentrate our efforts.

April 2020: becoming agents for change

Across the business Environmental Champions volunteered to lead us as we became the change we wanted to see. The first step: to get our house in order. We needed to make sure all our environmental records were in place and organized to a high standard as we began collecting our environmental data. We looked at office energy, gas, and water usage, office waste production, utility providers, business travel, and more. This got us in a position to be ready for ISO 14001 implementation. Where necessary we revised our internal policies to align with ISO14001 and devised a new Integrated Management System (IMS) to cover our ISMS (Information Security Management System from ISO 27001) and EMS (Environmental Management System from ISO 14001). With the help of our passionate team of Environmental Champions, the stage was set for us to make organization-wide changes.

August 2020: setting a baseline

Working with external experts, we measured our Scope 1, Scope 2, and selected Scope 3 emissions. This helped us set a baseline of emissions for use to begin reducing and offsetting according to the Oxford Offsetting Principles.

October 2020: smashing our goals

In October 2020, we received the results from our SECR report outlining our global energy usage and carbon emissions. Delighted by our already low emissions, we officially partnered with Climate Care to formally offset emissions we couldn’t directly reduce. This enabled us to become a carbon-neutral business a full year ahead of schedule. But even that wasn’t enough to satisfy us on our sustainability mission. We also decided to partner with our long-time client Woodland Trust to further mitigate our environmental impact. As a brand committed to having a positive impact on the planet, we are delighted to support a charity whose mission is to protect the environment. In addition to this, consultants from Blackmores began internal audits for our ISO 14001 certification with the hopes of getting certified by 2021.

December 2020: officially ISO14001 certified

Following a two-staged audit carried out by certification experts ISOQAR, dotdigital was officially recommended for ISO 14001 certification. With excellent feedback from our auditors about our “very, very phenomenal” efforts, we were found to be highly compliant with the international standard.
Therefore, as of December 2020 dotdigital became the first carbon-neutral, ISO 14001 certified marketing automation platform in the world. And still, we’re not satisfied. As the new year approached we took a step back to decide what our next steps should be.

April 2021: eyes on the future

As the first anniversary of our green journey approached, we were thrilled to see discussions about sustainable business practices making their way onto the world stage. To reaffirm our pledge to protect the environment, we’ve signed up to the Terra Carta.
Terra Carta supporting sustainable business

Keeping our eyes on the prize

Going green is more than just a fad for us. Every step we’ve taken, the change we’ve made, and the goals we’ve set have been a direct result of the personal commitment of everyone in our business. We recognize that it’s our responsibility, both as a brand and as individuals, to do what we can to protect the environment. It’s just an added benefit that we can help our customers as they embark upon their own green missions. We’re just at the beginning of our journey, but we want to share how we got here, so you can join us as we work towards a more sustainable future.]]>
dotdigital: working towards a sustainable future https://dotdigital.com/blog/dotdigital-working-towards-a-sustainable-future/ Wed, 27 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://dot.tiltedchair.co/dotdigital-working-towards-a-sustainable-future/ At dotdigital, we recognize that action on climate change is everyone’s responsibility. Not just our people’s, but the organization’s too. That’s why we decided to fast-track our efforts towards becoming a greener, more environmentally friendly business. In less than a year we’ve made significant and necessary changes to minimize our negative impact on the planet. Our hard work has been recognized and we’re proud to be an ISO 14001 accredited and certified business. Combatting climate change is an important issue for our staff and our customers alike. As climate change finds its way onto agendas around the world, we wanted to lead the way and help our customers and partners on their own journey.

What does being carbon neutral mean?

Carbon neutrality is one of the key metrics to measure the global response to the climate crisis and includes reducing other harmful emissions that contribute to the greenhouse gases damaging the planet. A business’s carbon footprint is determined by the total amount of energy it uses and the associated emissions created by its activities. For many businesses, it can be difficult to understand how much carbon their activities produce. It can be even harder to completely remove carbon generating processes from day-to-day business. Still, we weren’t going to let anything deter us from our goal. Through using green technology and offsetting our carbon usage, we’re committed to counterbalancing our carbon generation and remain carbon neutral.

Why is it important to be carbon neutral?

Greenhouse gases – of which carbon dioxide is a major contributor – are driving the process of global heating, a primary component of climate change. Becoming carbon neutral means that we’re no longer directly contributing to global heating. To have a significant impact on the problem, a lot more needs to be done than simply going carbon neutral, but it’s a good place to start. It’s our hope that by becoming carbon neutral we’ll not only be doing our part to help improve the health of the planet, but we’ll also be helping our customers and partners achieve their green goals too. By using our sustainable marketing automation platform, brands will have one less thing to worry about as they go green.

How did we do it?

In December 2019, we kicked off our campaign to ‘go greener’. Led by a dedicated team of environmental champions, our offices around the world came together in a united effort to improve the impact our business has on the planet.

Defining our goal

We set out with a lofty goal, to reduce our environmental impact by putting in place internationally recognized management standards and become carbon neutral. As a key way of measuring our impact on the environment, we knew that this was the first milestone we had to achieve to begin making a positive impact on the Earth.

Measuring our impact

With the help of external expert consultants, we began assessing our greenhouse gas emissions. During these assessments, we concluded that we, like most technology businesses, emitted most of our carbon from our computing that runs our technology, offices, staff commutes, and third-party vendors and service providers.

Setting our targets

Knowing that we wanted to lead the way with our carbon neutrality, we wanted to align with international best practice and target the right accreditation for us: ISO 14001. ISO 14001 is an internationally recognized environmental management system standard, that helps businesses become environmentally friendly. With its rigorous annual assessments, it ensures that our certification is up-to-date and pushes us to make ongoing improvements. Once we had a clear understanding of where we were and where we wanted to go, it was time to get to work. Our first mission was to make our offices, cloud services, and data centers carbon neutral. We switched to Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform, both of which are powered by renewable energy and are pioneers in sustainable computing. Our products are now powered 100% by renewable energy in Europe. In the Americas and APAC regions, we are 90% powered by renewable energy, and we aim to achieve 100% for these regions later this year. To entrench our green mission across the company, we launched a new environmental policy to educate our people about our impact on the planet. As we adapted to working from home, so did our policy, helping our staff make informed decisions about their energy suppliers. We also wanted to go further than just offsetting our direct carbon emissions, so we included emissions relating to our data centers, major third-party cloud providers, and all business travel in our mission for sustainability. We developed a carbon offset and mitigation strategy following the Oxford Offsetting Principles. This involves supporting international initiatives and working with our longstanding customer, The Woodland Trust, to protect nature and address the climate crisis.
Setting sustainable targets

What’s next?

We’re proud and delighted to announce that we’re now ISO 14001 accredited and certified! But we’re not just content with changing the way we work. We want to empower our customers to join us on our mission to create a more sustainable future. As part of our constant drive to improve and innovate our platform, we host a Hack Week every year, to let our developers’ creative juices flow. The winners for our most innovative idea created an ‘eco-mode’ which would allow customers to become a certified green user. By choosing to work in ‘eco mode’ users would be able to save energy by working in dark mode, receive tips, advice, and guidance on how to be more energy-efficient while using the platform, and receive green rewards for choosing to join our mission to go green. This is just one example of how we’re committing to helping our community, as well as the planet. As we work towards a greener future, we’ll continue to innovate and provide the tools marketers need to engage with customers sustainably.]]>
How to integrate ethical practices into your marketing https://dotdigital.com/blog/how-to-integrate-ethical-practices-into-your-marketing/ Wed, 20 May 2020 23:00:00 +0000 https://dot.tiltedchair.co/how-to-integrate-ethical-practices-into-your-marketing/ Why ecommerce brands should focus on ethics What’s all the rage about ethical marketing? Well, consumers are becoming more concerned about how brands and their activities affect people and the planet. One of the reasons they’re becoming more mindful is because of the climate emergency, which has had a lot more press over the last year thanks to the activism of Greta Thunberg. Consumers care, so they expect their favorite brands to care – and now, with raging bush fires and flash floods, that doesn’t just mean having an opinion, but actively doing something about it.

What do brands need to address?

  • The health of the planet
  • Fair trade
  • Human rights
  • Decent pay and working conditions
  • People in need
Morals define the essence of human behavior. So, the reasons why consumers act must be based on inherent principles. And since brands are party to consumer actions, they have an equal if not greater responsibility to remedy the environmental and social impact of their commercial activities. A report by New Sustainability states that 92% of people are trying to live more sustainably. What’s more, 90% of consumers agree that companies and brands have a responsibility to take care of the planet and its people. And a further 70% said they would be willing to pay more for products and services if they protect the environment and don’t infringe on human rights. Companies with a conscience could well have a competitive advantage, too; according to an Alfac survey, 82% of consumers believe that ethical brands outperform similar businesses that lack a commitment to ethical principles.

How to overcome the ethical marketing barriers

Many brands find it hard to commit to big ethical incentives because such activities are not profitable. Plus, low cash flow means it just might not be affordable. But there are alternatives brands can explore. It’s important to remember that customers will favor brands that put their ethical values first. This could mean all the difference to your loyalty and advocacy in the long run.

Start with your product image

What a brand wants to do versus what a brand can do is like every business strategy. There needs to be a reality check. But that doesn’t mean long-term goals won’t be unattainable forever. Brands can make a sustainability or charity wish list, and then tick things off one by one. Product image is one of the most important aspects of ethical marketing. Consumers will need good answers to the following:
  • Where does your product come from?
  • How is it made?
  • Who makes it and where and in what condition?
  • How is it packaged and distributed?
What can a brand do given its capacity? Some smaller businesses might think they don’t have enough resources to help or make a difference. But there’s always something that can be done. You could donate profits to a cause or pay employees to volunteer a couple of days a year. Gestures like these reflect really well on a brand and pay off later on. They add value that money can’t buy. And while quality and price are still sticking points for consumers, brand image – and the end product’s impact for good – carries weight in every market. Just think about the surge of popularity in organic foods, or how online gourmet stores have been milking the vegan cheese craze.

Scaling your sustainable activities

It takes time and work to trade as a sustainable business. But there is a growing demand from everyday consumers for retailers to raise sustainability from niche to market. There needs to be a consolidated effort to make ethical marketing common practice. Companies need to recognize that helping the environment and contributing to a meaningful cause (while trading as a business) is a bottleneck rather than a challenge. Think of it as growing pains. As your brand develops a loyal customer base and financial pressure eases, ethical marketing will take more of a center stage. Remember, retailers have an all-important role to play in promoting the sustainability of products to all their customers. It gives people a better reason to buy and puts a more positive spin on consumerism. Ethical products shouldn’t be seen as luxury nice-to-haves, but affordable must-haves that empower customers beyond a single transaction. What kind of activities constitute ethical ecommerce?
  • Active charity work
  • Sustainable and ethically sourced products
  • Good working conditions
  • Fair price and promotion (antitrust)
  • Zero waste pollution
  • Equal opportunities at work
  • Fair trade practices
  • Corporate social responsibility
The COVID pandemic has shed new light on what it means to be an ethical business. We’ve seen some marvelous examples of brands helping their local communities throughout this tough time. When life gets back to normal, people won’t ever forget these kind gestures that have made a difference. And it’s never too late to start your journey to a more sustainable business model.

Download our ethical marketing ebook

We’ve created an ebook with six ways brands can integrate ethical practices into their business. These include:
  • Contributing to a meaningful cause
  • Inspiring giving during consumer holidays
  • Making customers feel compassion
  • Communicating transparency within your brand
  • Showing ethical sourcing and production
  • Being authentic by showing that your 4Ps are fair
For more insight on these, plus real-life examples from brands in the vanguard of ethical marketing, grab your copy here.
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