Top 10 Highlights of 2023
We’re sharing some of the moments that made our year.
As the festive season approaches, we want to share the joy and success that defined our EPIC journey throughout 2023.
It's been a year of tremendous growth, meaningful impact, and inspiring collaborations, and we're excited to unwrap our top 10 highlights with you!
Ten | Striving to lead by example
As well as our success in balancing strong shows of corporate stories overall, the stand-out PR success of the year has been in thought leadership.
Ignition had 19 full-length pieces of press throughout the year on a great variety of subjects, and meaningful, industry-specific commentary, across sustainability - from accreditations and sustainability reporting to project demolition, our sustainable actions to opinions on eco design cliches.
Our opinion pieces ranged from student advice and the menopause, to what it means being a B Corp and working in the USA.
Our CEO, Sam Rowe, speaking at a Roundtable on Tackling the Climate Crisis with Business Leader
Nine | Our staff spend 970 hours volunteering
Our collective volunteering hours totals 970.5 which equates to 40.44 days - from beach cleans for Surfers Against Sewage to staff members becoming Equal Opportunities Ambassadors for Babbasa.
Our beach cleaning volunteers for Surfers Against Sewage: Saskia Horne, Lindie Kramers, Katy Evans, Alice Tapson, Bryn Isaac, Chris Gwyther, Emma Carter, Sam Morris, Gabri Pretto, Charlotte Johnson, Freya Black, Claire Yoxall and Paul Girdler.
Eight | Significant new client wins
Ignition won 5 significant new clients across different sectors – through pitching and word-of-mouth referrals.
1 x pharmaceutical client
2 x aesthetic beauty clients
2 x renewable energy clients
We look forward to partnering with both our new and existing clients during 2024 to continue creating excellent work!
Seven | Supporting the United Nations’ SDG’s
As a women owned business, we’re supporting girls’ education in Africa through CAMFED. We help with school fees for their secondary education, and buy their sanitary wear and uniforms.
We’re also supporting The Cordillera Azul National Park project, located in Peru’s high forest between the Andes and the Amazon Basin. It supports 26 community based businesses, with 40% of jobs held by women.
This project is working in a huge landscape of 37 million hectares (nearly the size of the Netherlands) to protect 16 million hectares of threatened forest.
In addition, a wide community driven programme is helping tens of thousands of local people gain access to basic services such as sanitation, healthcare and education.
Through Ecologi we’re supporting the protection of the Matavén forest in eastern Colombia and avoiding methane emissions from landfill in Brazil.
This means the only SDGs we are not yet contributing to are 2 – Zero hunger and 11 – Sustainable cities and communities.
By 2030, Ignition aims to support all of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals.
Six | International Women’s Day / B Corp Month
As part of International Women’s Day and B Corp Month, we featured on Coutts’ window in the Strand as both a fellow B Corp and a Certified Women-Owned Business Enterprise.
Five | Investing in our people
Our teams are growing. This year we welcomed 14 new starters, from designers to project managers, office manager to finance and new business.
We invested 138 hours in a new Manager Development programme, as we would like to have the best managers in the agency world.
As part of our commitment to Employee Wellbeing, we sharpened our People Policy and launched ‘Happy Hour’, a bi-monthly wellbeing session for staff during work hours with lunch being provided. Sessions ranged from chair yoga to art classes and include wellbeing tips for staff in our Monthly Bulletin too.
Four | We reduced our carbon emissions and became a Climate Positive Workforce
We became a Climate Positive Workforce and have reduced our Carbon Emissions by 56% since our 2019 base year.
Three | Supporting local good causes
Each team member with a corporate credit card joined Easyfundraising where a % of each transaction is donated to our chosen charity, The Julian Trust, which helps homeless people in Bristol. We’ve raised £1,246.93 so far this year.
We also donated £300 to social enterprise Babbasa to help them prepare young people for the emerging OurCity2030 employment opportunities. OurCity2030 is a bold and positive ambition to support at least one person from each low-income household in Bristol to secure a median salary by 2030. Our donation allows Babbasa to onboard and provide 1 x young person with intensive employability support for 12 weeks.
Two | We published our first B Impact Report
As part of our commitment as a B Corp, we have to publish regular Impact Reports to keep track of how well we're doing. It's not just a requirement; it's simply the right thing to do.
This report is all about sharing what we've achieved, celebrating our successes, and pushing ourselves to do even better. We want everyone who's interested in our company, from our clients and internal teams to the wider community, to use this report to make sure we're doing what we say we will.
We strongly believe that every company should be a force for good and make a positive difference to their clients, employees, communities, and the environment.
One | We delivered 101 projects across 4 continents with a 100% success rate
During 2023 we designed and delivered:
4 projects in Latin America, Asia, Australia & Middle East
31 projects across Europe in 8 different countries
66 projects in the US and Canada
Ignition has designed and delivered a total of 101 projects worldwide, across 4 continents with a 100% success rate.
Thank you for reading.
Season’s Greetings to all our readers and wishing you a happy, healthy and prosperous 2023!