The Southwark Climate Collective (SCC)
The Southwark Climate Collective is a 12-month programme, supported by the Mayor of London, providing expert support for SMEs across Southwark to reduce carbon emissions, increase efficiency and cut costs. It is led by the Southwark Climate Collective working in partnership with Better Bankside, Team London Bridge, The Blue Bermondsey, Elephant & Castle Business Forum, and Southwark Council.
A campaign brand that’s dynamic and inclusive whilst highlighting the four sustainability themes.
After successfully winning the tender, we embarked on creating a brand that would not only stand out from the plethora of sustainability identities but have bags of personality, and appeal to multiple cultures whilst highlighting the key sustainable business streams which businesses can commit to – energy, freight, waste and supply chains.
A logo that is a visual representation of the sustainability initiative.
We created 4 icons, one for each of the sustainability themes. The logo itself is an amalgamation of all the icons (streams) combined into one singular graphic. This, in its simplest form, represents how the Southwark Climate Collective (the logo) is a combination of all the 4 themes working in tandem together.
Choose your challenge.
Businesses take the first step of their journey with the Southwark Climate Collective by choosing one of four streams to take part in – energy, freight, waste, or supply chains. Experts then measure the impact individual businesses have on the environment and can help to identify potential changes they can make, big or small to help improve it.
These four streams are an integral part of the brand and are used across all communications in different ways, as well as in the logo itself. As the project is reliant on the successful participation of people, we felt it was important that people feature heavily in the campaign. In order to appeal to as broad an audience and age range as possible we felt that illustrations would play an essential role across all the required materials. Using an off-the-shelf set of contemporary vector illustrations to keep costs down, we were able to adapt these and integrate the themes, adapt for specific messages, and make them more engaging to the diverse audience of Southwark.
Creating a website that tells a simple narrative and communicates key facts and figures
SMEs are vital to achieving London’s 2030 net zero target, accounting for over 90% of the business population and an estimated 40% of the UK’s non-domestic emissions. The Southwark Climate Collective is offering free, bespoke, and expert support worth £6,000 to help businesses take action on climate change. It was important that the website worked hard to convey these key messages and stats whilst still having a friendly, engaging, and open personality.
Built on WordPress and our own bespoke starter theme, our team designed and built the website in record time (two weeks) ready for the launch event. Using brand elements and key messaging throughout we created the website to be engaging with simple animations and an accessible user journey to help access the core information. Working with Better Bankside on the content strategy, we explained the Southwark Climate Collective concept and goals in bite-size chunks.
The initial launch on the 3rd of October paves the way for a ‘phase 2’ with additional content and resources provided for local organisations interested or already taking part. Visit www.southwarkclimatecollective.co.uk to find out more.
Initial launch materials
As well as the website, to help promote the launch event, we created event and project collateral that included pull-up banner displays, a pocket-sized printed A6 concertina guide to the scheme, plus digital adverts used on the website and social media feeds. These materials demonstrated the flexibility of the brand assets that we had created, from the use of illustration, the 4 theme colour palettes, the challenge icons themselves and how all of these assets could interact with each other to create a free-flowing, energetic and dynamic brand.
Long term ambition
It is hoped that being part of the SCC will give each business the tools to address the climate crisis and that the outputs will lead to a significant reduction in carbon emissions. The aim is that by the end of the 12-month programme, businesses will have made vital cost savings and improved their business efficiency through an easy-to-follow process.
Kyri Vassila, Communications & Event Officer at BetterBankside had this to say:
We want to say a massive thank you to everyone on the team for your hard work in delivering this project, your constant support and creativity have been fantastic! Thank you all so much.
