Ourselves Joins 1% For The Planet Initiative

What is a good idea, if it's not doing some good?

At Ourselves we want to have less impact on people and the planet today, than we did yesterday.

It's a challenging approach to take when the fundamental role of marketing and advertising is to increase awareness of services and sell more stuff. If you're making and selling something, you're leaving some kind of footprint.

As part of lowing our impact, we wanted to give real financial support to smaller environmental grassroots projects that are taking direct action. To enable us to do this with some rigour we joined 1% For The Planet, which was started by Yvon Choinard, the founder of Patagonia. Through this we pledge to donate at least 1% of our revenue to causes that we believe are having a direct impact on humanity and climate change.

This year we've donated to two non-profits.

Surfers Against Sewage is a national marine conservation and campaigning charity that inspires, unites and empowers communities to take action to protect oceans, beaches, waves and wildlife. 

The Cornwall Seal Group Research Trust is an evidence-based marine conservation charity. They are a network of active citizen scientists across the South West of the UK who routinely survey seals on their local patch. They give seals a voice to protect them and their ocean home. 

We're definitely not perfect, and as Ourselves grows we'll continue putting a percentage of our time and revenue back into non-profits and looking at the way we do business.