WPR
About Us

Our ESG Plan: Planet

GIVING BACK MORE
TO OUR PLANET THAN WE TAKE

We are proud to be a certified plastic-neutral and carbon-neutral company, having offset the carbon footprints of our entire team across both their personal and their professional lives, and ceased purchasing any consumables containing plastic. Working with Carbon Neutral Britain and RePurpose Global, we now invest in some of the most innovative environmental projectsacross the world.

That said, we recognise that offsetting our carbon emissions and plastic consumption is only part of the answer. If we are to truly improve our environmental performance and reduce our environmental impact, we must reduce our carbon footprint by cutting our CO2 emissions, only buying products we truly need and sourcing locally, wherever possible.

carbon emissions

In our drive to be net zero by the end of 2028, we have set the following targets:

 202320242025202620272028
Target CO2114,00099,00075,00045,00025,00011,400

2023

By the end of 2023, we will have:

  • Installed a new heating system that will be 60% more efficient than our current arrangement
  • Insulated our building, together with the above taking the office from an EPC rating of D to B
  • Used the environmental strand of our learning and development programme to help our team understand how to work sustainably from home, and how to reduce plastic in our lives
  • Launched incentives to reduce commuting by car
  • Introduced multi-layered plastic recycling for items brought into the office by colleagues and clients (MLP is the most difficult plastic to recycle)
  • Overhauled our outdoor space to include a vegetable garden, orchard and wildflower meadow
  • Invested in composting equipment to dispose of all food waste, thereby creating organic matter for our new gardens
  • Launched green improvement loans, helping our team members to live more sustainably at home

2024

By the end of 2024, we will have:

  • Ensured all of our electricity comes from renewable sources
  • Invested in water butts to service our vegetable garden and orchard
  • Installed water efficient toilets and taps
  • Introduced glass recycling

2025

By the end of 2025, we will have:

  • Installed solar panels so we can start to generate our own energy
  • Moved to a zero landfill to waste collection service
  • Calculated our water consumption and begun investing in drought-prone places across the world

ENVIRONMENTALLY PREFERABLE PURCHASING POLICY

Our Environmentally Preferable Purchasing policy has been launched to the team and forms part of our new team member induction programme.

In short, our team knows that it’s our policy to question everything we buy, always asking ourselves if we can:

  1. Reduce: do we really need the item?
  2. Reuse: if we do really need the product, can we borrow instead of buying new?
  3. Recycle: if we do need to buy new, is there an end-of-life recycling option?

This spans all areas of agency life as we strive to reduce our carbon footprint:

TEAM REFRESHMENTS, FOOD & EVENTS

Everything we buy for our team to eat and drink within our walls will continue to be fair-trade sourced, palm oil-free and never, ever packaged in plastic. Wherever possible, we will source locally.

We will carry on providing alternative items with lower carbon footprint, such as oat milk, and educating our team on the environmental benefits of vegan substitutes over their dairy counterparts.

When we venture outside our building, we will always prioritise venues that reflect our values and principles, and we will work with suppliers to deliver events that have the least impact on the planet possible.

CLIENT & COLLEAGUE GIFTS

All gifts purchased for our clients or colleagues will continue to meet our values and principles – with suppliers including Love Cocoa, so a tree is planted for every gift we send out, and Arena Flowers, the UK’s most ethical florist.

We also like to say thank you for choosing WPR, so will plant 50-100 trees every time a new client comes onboard, and 100 trees for each new team member.

CLIENT PURCHASES

When a client asks that we buy something on their behalf, we will continue to do all we can to ensure the purchases are in line with our agency values.

CLIENT MEETINGS

As our clients have come to know, we provide fair-trade sourced, palm oil- and plastic-free snacks in our meetings, working with B Corp suppliers where possible, and opting for brands including Tony’s Chocolonely, Two Farmers, Clipper Tea and Kingdom Coffee.

As with our snacks, lunches will forever remain fair-trade and locally sourced, palm oil- and plastic-free, with our policy even reaching our bathrooms, with soap from Raindrop Clean and toilet roll from Serious Tissues.

OFFICE SUPPLIES

Again, it will remain our policy to buy plastic free whenever we can and, ideally, to choose B Corp suppliers. Our pens, notepads, laptop stands, phone covers and the like will continue to be plastic free. When we can’t buy plastic free, we will source options as low in plastic content as possible.

To cut wastage, we will continue to be strict with the dishing out of pens and notepads, reminding the team to ask themselves the “reduce, reuse, recycle” questions before buying anything.

We will carry on discouraging printing too. Everyone on the team has second screens both at work and home. When we do need to print anything in the office, which is rare, it will be on agency-supplied paper, which is either recycled and from recognised sustainable forest programmes.

WORKING FROM HOME

WFH equipment will continue to include a laptop, monitor, mouse, keyboard, laptop riser and chair. When a team member leaves us for pastures new, we will aim to re-distribute their equipment within the agency. If it is no longer fit for purpose, we will dispose of it in the most considerate way possible.

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