The Planet Mark™ goes underground to show the benefits of cutting carbon

For immediate release – An ad campaign calling on businesses to “cut their carbon and enjoy the benefits” will launch across the London Underground network on Monday (April 25th). The campaign, which is expected to be seen by more than one million Londoners over two weeks, has been created by The Planet Mark™, a unique sustainability certification programme that promotes knowledge and communication skills within organisations. The ad campaign is backed by a suite of free tools and materials including a free 25-page Practical Guide to Cutting Your Carbon Emissions.

The Planet Mark™ campaign launches three days from today – Earth Day – when more than 150 governments, including 40 heads of state, are expected to gather in New York in a symbolic signing ceremony to ratify December’s Paris Climate Deal.

“Governments are showing leadership on cutting greenhouse gas emissions and businesses have to play their part in supporting the pledges made in Paris – that means making ongoing cuts to their carbon footprint,” said Steve Malkin, CEO, The Planet Mark™. “But those actions needn’t be hard to make. We work with organisations and sectors, from multinational corporations, SMEs, schools and start-ups.They are measuring and reducing their carbon, and their actions are saving them money, enhancing their reputation, and, as a result, helping them attract and retain customers and employees.”

The ad campaign highlights the business case for cutting carbon emissions, supported by testimonials by two Planet Mark-certified businesses that are both seeing the benefits of taking action. A statement by Exterion Media’s CEO Jason Cotterrell reads: “The Planet Mark™ has helped us save money and also helped us be more competitive.” Bywaters CEO John Glover, adds: “The Planet Mark™ helps us manage risk and work more transparently, giving our customers confidence”.

The Planet Mark™ is a low resource programme that is proven to work. Dozens of properties, new developments and business are Planet Mark-certified, including DP World London Gateway, Land Securities and Bidvest Foodservice. On average, Planet Mark-certified businesses make a 7% carbon saving each year per employee*, through energy use, waste, water, travel and procurement. In doing so they expect to make cost savings of at least £100 per employee per annum.

The ads will appear inside carriages across all of London Underground’s tube lines. A total of 1000 cards have been printed. They are expected to be viewed by 1.26 million passengers on average 2.68 times, with a total impact of nearly 3.4 million views over the two-week period**.

Audiences that see the posters will be encouraged to visit The Planet Mark website where they will be able to download for free The Planet Mark Practical Guide to Cutting Your Carbon Emissions,  packed full of expert tips and supported by real-life case studies drawn from The Planet Mark™ business community. The guide is primarily aimed at sustainability heads, environmental managers and green champions that are looking for new ways to improve their sustainability performance, but is accessible to anyone to read. It contains seven chapters covering strategic and tactical ideas on areas such as data collection and measuring, efficiencies, employee engagement, communication, supply chain, collaboration and innovation.

The guide is one of several free tools and materials available for download to businesses from The Planet Mark™ website. It marks the culmination of a three month online campaign, Act On 7, which has taken its inspiration from the average by 7% carbon emissions reductions per employee per annum being achieved by Planet Mark-certified businesses. To date, the Act On 7 campaign has reached over 400,000 views online and via social media.

“There’s never been a better time for businesses to tackle their carbon footprint and we’re delighted to see so much interest and support for our campaign online. We hope the tube ad campaign will be a fitting finale to it,” commented Louise Bateman, The Planet Mark’s head of marketing and communications.

*Latest average percentage figure from the carbon emissions data taken from across all Planet Mark-certified.

** Source: RouteData

For more information on The Planet Mark™ go to www.theplanetmark.com

@ThePlanetMark