Marketing and branding agency The Marketing Store regularly advises its clients on how to improve their sustainability credentials, and turned to electric vehicles as an opportunity to practise what it preaches.
Hannah Partridge, director, portfolio and client development for The Marketing Store Europe, says: “We’re telling our clients on a daily basis to be as mindful of their impact as possible, and we have to live and breathe that within our own agency. It’s really important that we offer our people, as well as our clients, a sustainable way of doing business.”
The concept of an electric car scheme was initially suggested by a member of staff in 2020, and the business realised the potential benefits. “It’s a win-win; [we] have zero-emission cars that [we are] offering to staff, who showed great interest in it very early on,” she says. “But there’s also the salary sacrifice element where staff can save on national insurance and income tax. It gave them the ability to be more sustainable but also to be more efficient with their spending.”
The business partnered with Octopus Electric Vehicles and rolled out the scheme to its 150 staff earlier this year. To date, six people have taken advantage, and Partridge expects this to increase as people come to a point where they want to upgrade existing cars. “I’m in the third year of a three-year lease hire, and at the end of that I will be looking to switch to the plan,” she says.
Staff have been based remotely during the pandemic but, as a central London agency, Partridge isn’t expecting many people to use vehicles to drive to work, so hasn’t looked into installing a charge-point. “It’s more about offering vehicles for people’s personal use,” she says.
The company is also attempting to reduce its impact on the environment through other means, including offering a bikes-for-work scheme, shifting its energy supply to 100% renewable sources, and banning single-use plastic in the office.