It’s time to get workplace recycling sorted.

From 6 April 2024, it will became law for all businesses, charities, and public sector organisations to sort their waste for recycling, as it was already the case in domestic homes across Wales. The Welsh Government (WG) introduced this law to improve the quality and quantity of recycling from workplaces. This was an important step towards reaching zero waste, reducing our carbon emissions, and tackling the climate emergency.

Wales is already the best country in the UK for domestic recycling and second best in the world.

Our brief was to create national awareness and a change of behaviour campaign, not only to inform business owners and workplaces of the law change, but to educate, encourage and inspire them to get their waste sorted. The campaign key SMART objective was 80% awareness amongst businesses, public and third sector organisations of the change by April 2024.

Our Approach

• Making recycling everybody’s business. Together we can realise our nation’s ambition to become #1 in recycling. We will look to capitalise on the current high levels of support and pride around recycling in Wales, positioning workplace recycling as the natural progression. We’ll ‘name and praise’ and celebrate success stories to motivate, inspire and empower workplaces to get their recycling sorted.
• We’ll CONNECT, ENGAGE and EMPOWER senior decision makers (SDMs), and their employees/teams to ensure their workplaces are ready to be compliant by April 2024. We’ll highlight the positive impact they will have in their workplace, local community and Wales, as well as the benefits for their business and organisations (as well as their customers).
• We propose a phased, ’count-down’ approach to campaign activity, starting to raise awareness with ‘6-months to go’ to implementation, with ATL (above the line) bursts and intensifying the media weight and frequency the closer we get to April 2024.
• Messages will be drip-fed, to ensure information on the changes and how to get ready for those will be easy to consume for businesses – following the EAST framework to ensure content reaches and engages our audience.
• We will direct target and tailor messages to businesses’ SDMs and business owners, making it relevant to their sectors, helping overcome barriers unique to each. We will reach them directly via email, mobile and direct mail.

We deployed bursts of ATL media to raise awareness of the legislation among the public, combined with targeted (TTL and BTL) channels to connect, engage and empower with our target audiences (SDMs and business owners). ‘Always-on’ digital ensured continued awareness and engagement between bursts and support the ‘drip-feed’ approach to messaging on information regarding how businesses can get ready for the changes and also the sharing of success stories through case study videos.

Campaign phasing: we started with a 6-month countdown ATL burst in October 2023 following by ‘3-2-1 months to go’ on/off bursts January-March 2024. The last, heavy weight ATL bust is now live with higher reach, impact and frequency, as we countdown implementation next month. With majority of businesses in Wales are SMEs – with 94.6% of total enterprises being micro enterprises (0-9 employees), it means we had to target our audiences via businesses’ as well as through public awareness channels.

Creative

Wales is famous for being a proud nation.

So, in order to engage with workplaces of Wales and encourage them to adopt a proactive attitude towards the workplace legislation we needed to tap into this national pride. Welsh industry is made up of powerful and diverse businesses, charities and public sector organisations that contribute towards a strong economy. We wanted to harness this national pride by communicating that whether you’re a one-man band, an independent or a large corporation, everyone has the power to make a difference, working towards a greener stronger economy that they can be proud of.

The result? A national rallying cry ‘Workplaces of Wales. Let’s get recycling sorted.’ Brought to life by showing each sector doing their bit and working towards a greener Wales, with each execution capturing the individuality and character of Welsh industry in a quirky and patriotic way. The advert also educates people on the various waste streams and bins that can be used, and our audience were directed to a campaign landing page to find important guidance and support. We also filmed a series of case study stories, featuring business who are already sorting their waste, highlighting the rewards and benefits of doing so.

Results

Our three core objectives for this campaign were based on awareness, preparedness and support for the law change.

We met our primary targets, reaching 80% awareness amongst businesses (SMEs) for the new workplace recycling legal changes, as well as 80% of businesses feeling they were informed of what they needed to do to prepare for the upcoming law. We also maintained support amongst our business audience, with 75% remaining in favour of the law, rising to 81% for those who work in the Public and Third sector which make up a large proportion of the workplaces in Wales.