Is your work good enough? That’s the question being posed by Manchester-based communications agency Creative Concern to promote a new, international toolkit that’s been produced to help marketing and advertising professionals produce more responsible communications that are better for people and the planet.
The toolkit – called BeeCom – claims to be the first of its kind: A comprehensive guide to reducing the environmental impact of campaigns or communications, using communications to effect positive change, avoiding stereotypes, and greenwash, plus offering practical tips on how to reduce the eco footprint of both printed but also digital campaigns.
Produced in French, Spanish and English The BeeCom Responsible Communications toolkit and e-learning platform has been produced by a partnership that includes ESSTEAM (Tourcoing, France), Springtime (Brussels, Belgium), Creative Concern (Manchester, UK), Ecoavantis (Cordoba, Spain) and the IHECS Academy (Brussels, Belgium). It has been funded by the EU programme Erasmus+.
To launch the toolkit to audiences in the UK, Creative Concern are staging a one hour lunchtime Zoom webinar – entitled ‘Is Your Work Good Enough’ – at 12 noon UK time on Thursday, July 25.
The webinar is free of charge and anyone wishing to attend can register via Eventbrite. It will feature presentations drawn from the Do Not Smile Network of ethical agencies:
- Damla Özlüer, from Myra in Turkey (with a focus on the collective future of communications and our planet);
- Steve Connor from Creative Concern in the UK (with a focus on the overall approach for responsible communications and the BeeCom guide); and
- Chelsea Vassio from Paris, one of the BeeCom authors (with a focus on the impacts of digital technology and how we can do digital differently).
Steve Connor, founder and director at Creative Concern and one of the authors of the guide said: “We live in a world where marketing and advertising can be a force for division and environmental harm, or where we can use our creative skills to build bridges, heal wounds and work together for a more sustainable future. This toolkit has been inspired by the vision of a better future that good, ethical communications can help us to secure.”
The full guide is available online and includes a free download of ‘101 Ways to Practice Sustainable Communications’.
BeeCom is being co-financed by the European Union as part of the Erasmus+ programme dedicated to adult education, from September 2022 to August 2024.
