Over the past year, we’ve been having some honest conversations at Carswell Gould. About growth, impact and the role marketing plays in the world we’re all living in.
As a marketing agency, our job is to help businesses grow. We build brands, create campaigns and drive demand. That’s what we’re good at. But marketing is also a powerful force. It shapes behaviour, fuels consumption and influences what people value and buy. That comes with responsibility, whether we talk about it or not.
The reality for agencies and small businesses
Most marketing agencies aren’t sitting around trying to damage the planet. Most small businesses aren’t deliberately ignoring their impact. The real issue is that everyone is busy.
There are targets to hit, teams to manage and cash flow to think about. Sustainability can feel like something reserved for large corporates with dedicated ESG teams and big budgets. Even when the intent is there, the starting point isn’t always clear. What should you measure? What actually makes a difference? We’ve felt that same uncertainty ourselves.
So we started small
Rather than making bold public statements we couldn’t back up, we started with the basics.
- Our office’s electricity tariff is backed by Renewable Energy Guarantees of Origin (REGOs) and nuclear declarations, meaning the equivalent of 100% of our consumption is matched by certified low-carbon generation on the UK grid
- Our web hosting is powered by 100% renewable energy
- We’ve moved office supplies to plastic-free alternatives where possible
- We’re choosing suppliers more carefully, with values alignment as part of the criteria
None of this makes us a perfect business. It doesn’t cancel out every impact we have. But it is a start, and it reflects the direction we want to move in.
We’ve also started building different questions into our process. When we write a brief or shape a campaign, we ask: are claims properly evidenced? Are we encouraging unnecessary consumption? Have people and planet been fairly considered? Could we produce this in a lighter, smarter way?
Sometimes the answers are straightforward. Sometimes they are not.
Investing in real understanding
One of our team recently completed a Sustainable Marketing qualification with the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership. That experience deepened our understanding of how marketing connects to climate impact, behaviour change and business strategy.
Sustainable marketing is not about adding a green tint to your visuals. It’s about alignment, what a business says needs to reflect what it actually does. It’s about reducing harm, spotting risk and creating positive influence where you can.
Why this matters to our clients
Many of our clients care deeply about their teams, their communities and the quality of what they produce. They’re not trying to cut corners. They’re trying to build something that lasts.
We believe there’s a way to grow responsibly. A way to use marketing to strengthen trust rather than erode it. That belief led us to develop Impact, an ethical marketing framework built in partnership with The Pollinators, specialists in purpose, impact and B Corp.
Impact is designed to help businesses understand where their marketing creates risk, harm or opportunity, and do something about it. It’s practical, accessible and built for organisations of all sizes, not just global brands.
We want to do good work for good businesses. We want to reduce the negative impact where we can. And we want to use our skills in a way that feels responsible as well as effective.
We are still learning. We will not get everything right. But standing still did not feel like the right option.
