Delivering ROI by engaging staff with sustainability investments

HH Global is the global leader in tech-enabled creative production and procurement. With more than 4,000 staff in 60 countries, they work with the world’s leading brands to amplify their marketing campaigns through unrivalled production, procurement and advanced sustainability tools.

For Earth Day 2024, they used the Pinwheel platform to engage their global workforce with the world’s most impactful climate and nature projects from the Pinwheel portfolio. Keen to create a blueprint that others could follow, they engaged King’s College London Business School to inform the campaign and measure its success.

The report, published today, provides a comprehensive guide to leveraging the power of Pinwheel for global staff engagement. You can download your copy here.

Here’s the headlines:

• Pinwheel is working with HH Global around the world to execute a leading beyond value chain mitigation strategy that sees them funding nature and carbon removal projects directly, with their staff and alongside their clients and suppliers.

• The exam question for the Earth Day campaign: how do you engage a global workforce of 4,500 speaking a multitude of languages across 64 countries in a way that builds on the HH Global brand?

• What they did: 12 projects were funded via four Pinwheel engagement platforms (one for each of EMEA, APAC, LATAM and NAM). Each member of staff was allocated $10 to donate to a project of their choice via the platform.

The results reveal powerful learnings for organisations seeking to engage their audiences with sustainability:

• Choice is a powerful engagement tool: almost 50% of colleagues voted for a project. This was the best staff engagement initiative HH Global had ever achieved, spanning sustainability and beyond.

• Biodiversity projects outperformed carbon projects: receiving 34% of votes compared to 21% for carbon projects.

• BVCM strategies are more engaging that carbon offsetting: the projects ranged from biodiversity such as forest restoration in the Andes, sea turtle hatchling protection, to novel methods of carbon removal of enhanced rock weathering and biochar, to projects providing strong social impact like solar energy in sub-Saharan Africa and regreening farmland in Tanzania.

• Executive sponsorship moves the dial: management at every level supported the initiative and encouraged their team to vote which drove participation.

• Simplicity of the call to action drives the best engagement: voting for projects was significantly more engaging than making donations or action pledges. The simple action of voting drove higher participation rates due to the lower barrier to act.

HH Global have showcased the work at global conferences from COP to the World Sustainability Congress and are now using the Pinwheel platform to engage clients, suppliers and other VIP stakeholders in their BVCM decisions around the world.

“Our Earth Day 2024 initiative was a pivotal moment in our sustainability journey. By Engaging our entire global workforce in selecting impactful environmental projects, we not only amplified our collective impact but also fostered a sense of shared responsibility. This approach allowed us to keep every colleague involved, regardless of their location or role uniting our diverse team behind a common purpose. It’s a powerful demonstration of how businesses can enable their workforce to drive meaningful sustainability action, while simultaneously building a more engaged and purpose driven culture.”

Kevin Dunckley, Chief Sustainability Officer, HH Global