RMP Enterprise is a team of 70+ engineers, creative and marketing specialists – founded by students, for students. Its mission is to connect talented young people with companies offering placements, internships and apprenticeships.
When Clifford Chance – a world-leading law firm and part of the Magic Circle – approached RMP, they set them a challenge: ‘prove to students we’re serious about our sustainability promises’.
Collaborating for better
RMP turned to its On-Campus Promotions brand. It’s response? To help RMP and Clifford Chance create their first ever net zero brand ambassador campaign.
Together, the partnership decided to team up with climate experts Supercritical. They led an extensive review in RMP and found that their average brand ambassador campaign individually contributed an estimated 2.5-3 tonnes of CO2e through various activities such as: interviewing, travel, producing and distributing marketing materials (flyers, hoodies, brochures), producing, and distributing consumables (coffee, pizza, donuts), plus all the head office & people contributions.
By nature, RMP’s On-Campus Promotions endorse employers’ brands and opportunities on campuses across the country. To ensure it could run a net zero campaign for Clifford Chance would require significantly adapting its offering and offsetting all unavoidable emissions. With 20 brand ambassadors delivering 400 hours across 20 campuses, On-Campus Promotions was faced with a real challenge – and yet a chance to make lasting change.
Making changes
Typically, brand ambassador campaigns comprise of 50% online promotion and 50% on-campus. To ensure the lowest carbon footprint while also engaging with students, On-Campus Promotions committed to making its promotions 80% digital and only 20% face-to-face.
This meant ignoring high performing traditional activities and implementing fresh-thinking alternatives, such as virtual interviews helping replacing the need for prospective candidates racking up travel emissions. When face-to-face engagement was necessary, the partnership insisted on tube and train travel only. Plus, outreach assets like brochures and giveaways were traded in for high-quality digital options.
As hoodies were deemed a necessity by brand ambassadors, a new sustainable hoodie supplier was brought in. idressmyself boasts water-based inks, eco threads, organic cotton and vegan recycled garments. From production through to end-of-life, idressmyself’s sustainable hoodies created around 60% less carbon emissions than previous suppliers.
Measuring sentiment
RMP and Clifford Chance continued working with Supercritical to calculate expected carbon emissions for all activities, travel, giveaways, and consumables. This guaranteed confidence in the data being shared and allowed the partnership to accumulate its true impact.
Placing sustainability at the heart of the concept and the execution resonated immensely with brand ambassadors. Gen Z is incredibly motivated to work for climate-conscious businesses, and the engagement this campaign generated outperformed all 30+ non-green campaigns RMP and Clifford Chance have worked on together. Indicators include:
A continuing impact
The campaign still took stock of its largest carbon emissions per each brand ambassadorship. Therefore, it anticipated the environmental impact of the overall campaign to be between 1-1.1 tonnes CO2e. With non-green campaigns sitting at around 2.5-3 tonnes, this is an approximate 60% reduction in emissions – a phenomenal achievement in year one alone.
What’s next?
Clifford Chance aims to reduce absolute scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2030. It wants to be one of the greenest early careers recruiters, and with the help of RMP Enterprise, it’s on its way to accomplishing this. After becoming net zero in 2022, RMP is on an ambitious path to reduce carbon emissions by 10% each year and become carbon negative by 2024.
This change-defining partnership campaign has inspired both Clifford Chance and RMP to delve deeper into their supply chains and offset the emissions of all their promotional activity.