An SME's journey to decarbonisation: Brilliant Noise
23 August 2022 - Brilliant Noise is a strategic marketing partner for global brands. Combining the strengths of a management consultancy and creative agency, the Brighton-based SME transforms businesses through data-led strategy, planning and purposeful content.
Chief Commercial Officer and co-founder Maddy Cooper, shares her personal insights on Brilliant Noise’s journey to net zero and their mission to help other businesses do the same.
So many people want to make a significant difference to the planet, but most don’t know how. It’s hard to know how to get involved and take action. So they’re grappling for connections and looking for leading lights or sources of inspiration: people to speak with, groups to join, sources to read. This is why net zero skills and training are hugely valuable.
The path to net zero is non-negotiable, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to navigate. At Brilliant Noise, we knew we wanted to make a difference with our work. For our marketing to mean something and make a strong contribution to the movement of inspiring all consumers to make better, more sustainable choices. This is one of the many reasons why we made a plan to take climate action and reach net zero.
The first step we took was to explore becoming B Corp certified. We’re currently in the final stages of verification. It required us to measure our entire social and environmental impact, in particular calculating each aspect of our carbon usage. This process enabled us to clearly understand where and how we could reduce our emissions.
We found that, other than our use of computers, we are a relatively low carbon business. But the benchmarking process helped us to take additional steps where we could. For example, each of our founding partners now uses a pure electric car and, during the pandemic, we moved the team to an ultra-sustainable co-working space. Plus X has an excellent BREEAM rating and Platinum WELL building accreditation; it was an obvious choice to further reduce our impact and was fairly quick and easy to implement.
In 2021, I completed CISL’s Business and Climate Change online course and became a member of the BIMA Sustainability Council. I felt motivated to engage with sustainability in this way because I wanted Brilliant Noise to become a net zero business. I also knew that joining these communities would enable us to form strong connections and win clients. But more than this: I wanted to study and understand sustainability because it actually matters. I have a four and seven year old and the truth is, it’s terrifying. Climate change is fast approaching, and rapid action is needed. I saw that I could make a difference with Brilliant Noise.
Our deeper understanding of decarbonisation has enabled us to shift our work in the direction of sustainability-focused marketing for brands, as well as how they can cut carbon within the marketing supply chain. We’re now doing more for net zero through our clients and it’s led to some brilliant opportunities: for example, we won the contract for all of Nestlé’s plant-based and innovation brands.
While I’ve been the main sustainability champion for Brilliant Noise, I’ve brought others along by showing the commercial case for us. We can grow by winning good business, because brands need to tell their sustainability stories in order to stay relevant.
Of course, sustainability also matters to our employees. Since the beginning of the agency, we have really invested in our culture and the way that we look after our people. But that's irrelevant if we're not also talking about our culture within the context of climate change. Our team needs to know that we are prioritising sustainability because they want to work for an employer that cares about our planet. It’s helped us attract new talent too.
My advice for other SMEs looking to reach net zero is to do some form of benchmarking and get an overview of GHG emissions. This will allow you to understand where your business can make the most impact and prioritise those areas. From there, you can find training that fits the kind of changes you need to make as a business. Learn deeply about those areas and empower key team members to do the same. Once you understand those powerful levers for change, you can apply your learnings and make the most impact.
Moving forward, I’d like to re-do our benchmarking and take any further actions that are needed to decarbonise. The plan is to become B corp certified and reach net zero this year. This will include being more mindful in our use of data. I also don’t want us to return to a pre-covid dynamic, where international travel was the norm - nor would I want to encourage that in our clients. There needs to be a real business case for getting on a plane now.
There’s definitely a humility to this kind of work. We’re advocates for radical pragmatism. If we can support big corporations to make a genuine difference and share their progress, we can have a greater impact - and faster. To be honest, companies that don’t do this work face total irrelevance and commercial collapse because of the rising consumer demand for sustainability-focused businesses.
It’s also taught me that if I’m really interested in something, I can find the time to do it. I studied with CISL while running a business through a pandemic and looking after two young children. That’s a lot of plates to spin. But I could do this work, because I care about it. We have to care. We have to do it.
Finally, it’s important to remember there’s no finish line. It’s a path of continuous improvement; we’ll keep on strengthening our approach. The most valuable thing we can do is to inspire our clients to decarbonise their marketing and tell genuine stories to consumers that encourage behavioural change. From now on, there’s no success without care for our planet, and that’s got to include decarbonisation.
The University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) Accelerator and Business for Social Responsibility (BSR™) have partnered with the We Mean Business (WMB) Coalition to create Climate Fit: net zero training for SMEs. This self paced online course breaks climate action down into seven achievable steps and is available for free through the SME Climate Hub.
Find out more and sign up here: smeclimatehub.org/climate-fit
Find out about our online courses here: Online sustainability courses and leadership training, Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership