Adobe UK & Ireland is committed to sustainability in product innovations and operations, working with employees to foster a culture of sustainability throughout the business. Adobe wanted to further these aims by working with its partners and customers to deepen relationships with sustainability at its core and develop innovative ways to drive new sustainability initiatives.
We created the ‘Sustainability Games’; a unique, innovative format that would bring together partners and customers in two separate initiatives to take part in an environmental challenge across a month of focused climate action.
Creating an engagement project that would recruit and inspire companies to engage their staff to live more sustainably was an exciting opportunity to drive impactful behaviour change and climate action. Adobe counts some of the most influential tech organisations in the world as partners and customers who are not sustainability experts. It was a chance to change behaviours amongst the mainstream, align and engage their partners with their sustainability goals, and carry those learnings and influence back into the respective partnering organisations.
It was an ambitious initiative not seen before in the employee engagement space to learn and talk more about sustainability at home and work and encourage sustainable behaviours. It brought together some the largest professional service and tech companies across Adobe’s ecosystem, including Accenture, IBM, Infosys, Amazon, and Microsoft.
All participants had access to Giki Zero, a digital-first science-based platform built to help citizens understand their carbon footprint and then how to reduce their impact, and what they can do for the planet.
We began by challenging them to find out their ‘Giki score’ (to keep track of everything they are doing for the planet), measure and learn about their carbon footprint, and start taking climate action. During the Games, we ran a month of activities around accessible themes linked to lifestyle areas such as food, fashion, and family.
Utilising existing communication channels, virtual events, and a WhatsApp group, we created additional moments to learn about climate action. Education was reinforced through workshops, ongoing communications, and a content hub accessed almost 2,000 times.
This created high engagement throughout and built new knowledge and interest in sustainability.
The project was so successful that Adobe ran a second edition of the Games for their customers. This time, it brought together nine major companies, including Unilever, Costain, and NatWest, working together and in competition to take almost 2,000 climate actions towards reducing their impacts on the planet!
Some drivers for engagement were fun, community, and competition. Adobe used gamification, such as leagues, for partners to compete and kept everyone motivated with weekly rewards for partners and individuals who took the most action for the planet, creating many conversations and inspiration to do more on sustainability.
Sarah Gunderson, Director of Partner Sales – UKI & MEA, led the project: “We aimed to build partnerships with sustainability at their core and to foster a culture of sustainability in our partner organisations.”
This campaign was hailed a fantastic success by participants to build sustainable behaviours through individuals, rightfully recognised as important change-makers at the highest levels in the UN Emissions Gap report, COP27 implementation plan, and the IPCC 6th Assessment.
Employees are the key stakeholder to persuade influential people within the business to adopt and champion sustainability, and sustainability-themed engagement campaigns that are driven by competition and community are extremely effective in persuading people of the importance of sustainable behaviours. As 40-70% of emissions reductions can be achieved through behaviour change, this type of engagement with citizens and employees is crucial to reaching net zero.
If you’d like to help build sustainable behaviours in your company, then get in touch.
