Why it’s time for businesses to prioritise tackling the climate crisis

Propellernet has always been a values-led business. We prioritise looking after our team and taking on challenges that are bigger than us over short-term profit goals. It has stood us in good stead and provided longevity and an award-winning culture.

When we first came across the B Corp movement, it fitted really closely to our vision of how businesses should operate. Ethics, integrity, innovation and concern for the things that really matter are not just the right things to do, they are the backbone of our business identity. It was clear that B Corp certification should be a step we take on our journey.

We first certified in 2021. But rather than this marking the end of a process, it sparked the beginning of a phase of continual improvement. We became part of a group of organisations that shared our purpose and we constantly see things in the B Corp community that we can learn from.

I wouldn’t say that certification has fundamentally changed our approach to decision-making, but it has given us fresh ideas and permission to wear our heart on our sleeve. It is part of human nature to grow in confidence when you are part of a community that reinforces your beliefs and that is what becoming a B Corp has done for us. For example, our strong and vocal stance on environmental issues has been a big part of our business over the past few years and other B Corps have really supported us.

We hate the term net zero. It wreaks of a lack of ambition in tackling what is the biggest challenge of our generation. Net zero to us means not being bad but it doesn’t go far enough? If I said to someone: ‘your goal is to pick up as much litter as you drop’, how would that feel? Compare that to the goal of never dropping any litter and cleaning up as much of other people’s litter as you can and you can see the difference. Isn’t it so much more inspiring?!

To that end, we have three environmental goals:

1. Remove: clean up our historic emissions. We have invested in gold standard carbon credits in order to remove an equivalent amount of greenhouse gas emissions as we have generated over our 20 years in business (plus a bit extra in case our calculations were understated).
2. Reduce: bring down our future emissions. We have measured our carbon footprint and have been working hard to reduce all three sources of emissions by as much as possible, as quickly as possible. We’ve become zero waste, have installed renewable energy technologies, updated our office building for energy efficiency, switched our banking, paid for cycle and electric-vehicle schemes for staff, reviewed and switched parts of our supply chain – and many more. We still have a way to go, but we can see where we are headed.
3. Restore: we invest in large-scale nature restoration. We fund a number of reforestation projects in the global south, with a focus on mangrove planting in Madagascar and Kenya. We will reach our target of planting  1 million trees within three years and expect to fund ocean restoration work from next year too.

We also put our money where our mouth is. Patagonia founded the 1% for the planet initiative but we wanted to go one better, so we invest 1.2% of our sales (not profit) in direct, nature-based climate action. What’s more, we co-founded www.milliontreepledge.org with a group of like-minded businesses to support and inspire more companies to invest some of their profits in nature restoration.

We happily share with clients the benefit they get from the way we choose to run our business as a B Corp. For example, we have a much lower than average staff turnover, meaning our clients get to work with a stable team. We also attract really talented people, as more and more and in a competitive jobs market, the best people are looking to work for a company whose values they share.

In order to become a B Corp, you have to demonstrate that you have good governance, look after your team, act on environmental and social issues, and generate value for your customers. It’s a pretty safe bet that if you partner with a B Corp, you are going to end up working with an ethical company that the staff believe in.

Of course, you also need to be able to demonstrate great results and that is where I feel so proud of our team at Propellernet because we combine market-leading results with ethical practice. That, for me, is the definition of high performance.

Like anything, you need a strong vision and the will to chase it down. When we first started taking sustainability seriously, we had no idea what the best thing to do was so we started planting trees, because it felt like the most obvious and tangible thing to do. Since then, we have added a huge number of different actions as we move towards becoming as climate focused as we can, but you have to start somewhere. I have loads of conversations with businesses who want to do more for the planet but don’t know where to start.

The simple answer to that is: do something! And that should be something you feel good about and can share what you have done with others. It’s amazing how the momentum can build from a simple action. If you wait for the perfect plan to form, it will only slow you down and on this issue, time is one thing we can’t afford to waste.

The best thing is that as we have taken more meaningful steps on our sustainability journey, we have grown our business. People want to work with and for companies that care about the environment. Sustainability is good for business, as well as being good for the planet.

I’ve got a young family, and I often think: ‘I wonder what will be my biggest achievement in the eyes of my kids and their kids?’ I can say with complete confidence that no amount of money or business wins will get close to the achievement of our environmental and social action. In a way, the fact that we are a marketing agency or a B Corp is irrelevant. For me it’s about the contribution that we make and the level of impact we can have on the big issues that really matters.