Kids Industries has kickstarted its journey with sustainability through the formation of an internal ‘green team’ tasked with reducing the business’ carbon footprint, joining a number of others across the licensing industry to kick-start a new journey of sustainable development.
The special project will be led by Amy Mcaulay, creative producer at KI who has already begun to measure and benchmark the team’s current scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions. Amy will be looking into areas such as energy use within the office, recycling rates, waste, and ways in which company culture can be influenced “without people feeling they are being told off,” she said.
“Like everyone, we have a responsibility to do our bit – for the environment and for our young audiences and families, the people we work for and create content for,” Amy told Products of Change.
With the help of her colleague, KI’s junior designer Marina Maurer, the pair will work to transition the research and knowledge business from phase one of measuring to phases two (identifying where carbon reductions can be made) and three (implementing changes in the business).
“As a knowledge-based business, we know a lot about our audience and our clients, so it makes sense we increase our knowledge on the subject of sustainability. Because this doesn’t just affect the lives of the kids we create content for, but everyone, and that includes us,” said Amy.
The formation of the internal ‘green team’ has been pinpointed in the recently launched Industry Framework from Products of Change – available to download now – as the first key step out of five for businesses looking to take their first steps on that journey of sustainable development.
Identified as the Foundation of the process of transitioning business, the Green Team should draw on the experience and insight of a cross-department representation of employees in order to better ‘transfer sustainable knowledge and gain visibility of current achievements and ambitions to set across the business.’
From pushing innovative new design principles towards a circular economy to tapping into the energy and cost efficiency of solar power at its headquarters, Danilo has attributed its own achievements in sustainable development to date to the early adoption of an in-house green team to push the agenda across departments.
It was in the early days of the business’ approach that a team of eight was put together from areas including marketing, production, sales, and creative to thrash out initial ideas and issues important to the company’s ESG strategy. Since then, the Green Team, led by Danilo’s marketing manager, Claire Bates, has been responsible for improving practices across various areas of the business, from internal operations spanning its scopes 1 and 2 to the wider partner network and the beginnings of an approach to scope 3 measurement and reduction.
“We’ve found it really beneficial to bring each different department of the business into the conversation as it provides a think tank allowing us to target what’s important to us as a company while encouraging sustainability to become a part of the company culture,” Claire told Products of Change.
The Products of Change Framework suggests that through the Green Team, a set of short, mid, and long-term goals can be built with each taking responsibility for specified areas within that.
Developments to have emerged from the Green Team include the adoption of more mindful product design and a push for innovative new concepts to reduce the use of materials like cello wrap across Danilo’s calendars and in one special case, the creation of a bespoke ‘perpetual calendar’ that can be reused time and again rather than thrown away.
“We think this is the direction things will be going for products,” continued Claire. “Designing for reuse gives the creative team a great new direction to try new things and new ideas – and the Green Team has been integral in helping our commitment to reducing our carbon footprint filter across the company.”
The Products of Change Industry Framework has been billed as a “game-changing” resource developed by the industry for the industry offering a step-by-step guide to transitioning the $340bn global licensing industry towards a more sustainable and positive future.
“This framework will be a great resource for any company, no matter where they are on their sustainability journey,” said Danilo’s Claire Bates. “The creation of useful resources such as this will also help Products of Change continue its great work of educating and driving sustainable change.”
The Industry Framework is available to download here.
The Framework has been launched to be used in tandem with the educational content Products of Change provides through the Education portal as well as its library of content across On Demand video and podcasts. Products of Change members, make use of the resources available to you via the Members Hub and remember to share your progress with the POC community as you take on the journey of sustainable development.
