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Service providers such as marketing agencies, designers, recruiters and SaaS companies are also seeing a need to develop their sustainability strategy to fulfil consumer demand, but when you don’t have a supply chain or physical product, taking environmental action can feel like a daunting task.
Tortuga Creative Studio, a Canadian branding studio, focuses on helping outdoor, purpose-driven businesses build and manage their brand’s creative strategy. Not just your ordinary creative studio, Tortuga is dedicated to having a positive impact on businesses but also on the environment - specifically the ocean.
“Sustainability is something that has always been very important to me as a person and very ingrained in my life so when I realized that my business could channel the same values that I have as a person it was really a no-brainer. I don't feel that sustainability is something that I ever incorporated into Tortuga for strategic reasons - it’s just been a must-have. It’s not about numbers, it’s about the difference that we can make. “ - Natalie Gilson, owner of TCS
Before joining Greenspark, Tortuga had spent plenty of time researching companies that offer offsetting and found some that offered tree planting and offsetting carbon emissions. It was Greensparks' partnership with the Plastic Bank and the ability to rescue plastic from the environment that encouraged them to join our community of earth positive businesses.
Tortuga currently has a team account along with the Plastic Hero add-ons for each of their team members. This means that every month, the entire carbon and plastic footprint of each member of staff is offset through environmentally and socially positive projects around the world.
“I think with product-based businesses you can make more tangible, everyday choices that contribute to a sustainable business (non-plastic packaging, responsible production etc) but it’s a bit more intangible with service-based businesses. Being able to add the extra plastic hero impact for each of my team members doesn’t take the responsibility away from trying to reduce plastic consumption, but it does allow each of us to feel like we are doing something positive to counteract the problem.”
Alongside their team impact, they have recently developed two different types of lead generation content including a downloadable e-book and a quiz, both advertised on their website and across social media.
For every download of their Brand Purpose e-book and every completion of their Brand Journey quiz, they are removing 10 plastic bottles from the ocean through their Greenspark account.
While this is a new initiative that TCS is running, they have found the immediate response to be positive and the ability to add ad-hoc impact for lead generators to be a huge benefit for their business.
“We were looking for a way that we could get our wider audience excited about having a small impact. Our lead generators target people who are not currently our clients or are just getting to know us and what we do. I think that what I like the most about being able to add on tailored impact to lead generators is that people get really excited about saying things like ‘hey I removed 5 plastic bottles today!’. It gives them something to talk about and I think it sticks with them.”
TCS has been gifting impact to their team members for 15 months with Greenspark and in that time, they’ve rescued 5,310 plastic bottles (an average of 354 bottles a month). That’s the equivalent of rescuing 14,160 plastic straws or 1,770 disposable coffee cups from landfills a month.
According to Natalie, the team love to have environmental action taken on their behalf and she believes it has inspired her remote team to make more sustainable choices in their home lives as well.
“I feel that we are all aligned by a certain set of values and that when you work together with other like-minded people you can’t help but inspire each other to make better choices. Many of them have been particularly intrigued by sustainable and green graphic design practices and have expressed an interest in going on to learn more about that.”
“Clients LOVE the impact that we have. We’ve often heard people saying how amazing an initiative this is, how excited they are to be a part of it and how it’s inspired them to want to find ways to use their own businesses to make an impact. We’ve also had a few people ask us about Greenspark because of some of the social media posting.”
The Tortuga Creative Studio Instagram account is partially dedicated to educating their followers on plastic pollution and ocean protection. In January, they saw a 64% increase in engagement on the posts where Greenspark and their environmental impact was mentioned.
Similarly in December, they saw a 54% increase in engagement on Instagram when they mentioned the amount of plastic they had rescued and carbon they’d offset through Greenspark.
While Tortuga’s lead generation with impact as an incentive is still very new, they have seen a positive increase in engagement and interaction in the promotion of their ‘Free Brand Journey quiz’. Initial testing has seen a 15% increase in engagement on posts that promoted their lead generation quiz along with an impact incentive compared to their posts which did not mention rescuing plastic.
Whilst it may appear harder for service-based businesses to make tangible sustainable changes, there are still many opportunities for them to take environmental action.
Tortuga Creative Studios have embedded positive environmental impact into their business through team incentives and lead generation. Whilst not selling a physical product, their response from their growing community has been nothing short of positive.
It’s also great to see how a business audience more actively responds to lead generation marketing tactics when they’re given the opportunity to make positive environmental impact at the same time.
If you're looking at ways to engage your team around climate action whilst motivating them at the same time, or you're looking to improve the success of your lead generation campaigns, get in touch. You can book a demo directly with one of our team - here. Or drop us an email here.
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