Eight Steps to Elevating DCI’s Sustainability Plan

As a place marketing agency, we know we need to do more than use less paper to call ourselves green—we need a fully fleshed out and data-driven sustainability plan for our agency.

The industry has already proven time and again that travelers and destinations want to be more sustainable in every way possible. Working with like-minded partners is key to implementing and promoting that commitment.

Before we can create stellar marketing campaigns to promote destinations as sustainable choices, however, we need to be sure we have enacted our own sustainability plan.

1. Analyze Industry Concerns

To rebuild our own approach to sustainability, we started looking at both our client’s best practices and agency best practices. We desired to be aligned on each other’s values and goals before moving forward with our plans.

We took the temperature of the industry by reviewing our client’s sustainability plans, reading industry association reports and listening at conferences. By understanding what destinations, their partners, and other decision makers are discussing, we knew we could better enhance our own internal practices that will, in turn, support those of our clients.

2. Determined Areas of Focus for DCI Best Practices

We zeroed in on areas of focus for our agency including addressing needs in our physical offices, aiding our regional staff members, analyzing our vendors, rethinking our corporate travel approach and how we give back to the communities in which we work.

Our internal task force led an internal audit to determine how the offices function, how we source vendors, and how employees act with a sustainable mindset. This internal audit is vital to moving the plan forward and enacting change.

3. Address Physical Office Space

Within our offices, we are taking our own regenerative approach. We don’t forget the basics, skipping single-use plastics for reusable metal water bottles, limiting printing while opting instead for digital business cards, and working with the lights off while the sun is a suitable substitute.

Even our technology gets sustainable treatment as our office managers work to recycle outdated technology to avoid tossing it in a landfill. It’s not just about refusing, reusing, and recycling. We know we need to make smarter choices from the beginning.

4. Empower Remote Working

As DCI supports remote and flexible working arrangements across its offices, we know that the key to keeping the best staff is to engage them. During our staff meetings, for example, we include a monthly life hack to offer staff new ways of thinking to improve their working conditions while keeping everyone connected. 

It could be something as simple as teaching staff that adding a towel to the dryer helps cut down drying time, and thus saves energy. It’s about creating a culture that embraces sustainability as the norm, even when we’re working remotely.

5. Analyze Vendors

We strive to make deliberate choices when it comes to vendors, seeking those who are committed to greener practices but also socially responsible practices. For catered events and new office materials, for example, we prioritize seeing local vendors, minority-owned vendors.

This means understanding who our vendors are, what kind of practices they engage in, and if our working with them has a positive impact on both the environment and the community.

6. Evaluate Our Approach to Travel

As a destination marketing agency, we know that travel is part of the job—but that it can also have negative impacts. We aim to minimize our carbon footprint as much as possible by encouraging more sustainable practice, like opting for rail travel when possible, carpooling if needed, walking, cycling and purchasing carbon credits to offset our output.

There is no way to avoid travel in this line of business, but developing a culture that understands that we can opt for the better of two choices is important for DCI. We put this “talk into walk” at our annual retreat in Charlotte this year.

7. Care for Our Communities

In the same way we help destinations contribute to their local communities, DCI gives back to its own. We implemented a give back project with Materials for the Arts, an initiative of the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs. Members of our New York office sorted through donated clothing and costumes to package up what can be donated to New York CIty shelters. DCI also donated art supplies that will be used by artists, educators and others who qualify for the program.

8. Document and Share Our Success 

We are making our commitment known, having signed the USTOA Sustainability Promise. This document clearly states that we agree with the tenets “to encourage collaboration, learning, and action of all members to advance social equity, economic growth for all communities touched by Active and Associate Members and be nature positive through environmental responsibility.” 

It’s a gesture that codifies our commitment and further makes DCI accountable to engaging in better, more sustainable practice in a well we do for our team and clients.

We are also working on an internal document for RFPs and clients to detail in no uncertain terms what sustainability efforts we have adopted. The document will grow as the agency does, but will live as a testimony to our commitment.

The work is never done, but here at DCI, we are doing it! To learn more about DCI’s sustainability efforts and how they impact our destination marketing, reach out to Siobhan Chretien at siobhan.chretien@aboutdci.com.