🚀 Launching: The ‘MITIGATE’ Database
Looking for 200+ partners to mitigate your brands’ environmental impact? Look no further.
200+ partners mapped against 350+ consumer brands. Getting to grips with measuring emissions has been the starting point on many brands’ sustainability journeys. However, 2030 is looming closer. The stakes are high, with the price of failure being our planet. If this fear wasn’t enough, increasing sustainability legislation from governments, big businesses and customers are pushing brands to make this change. Net zero and a net biodiversity gain won’t be achieved, and a climate crisis won’t be avoided, if we simply know where our brands’ emissions hotspots are - they need to be reduced, fast.
90% of UK SMEs believe one of the biggest barriers they face to reducing their impact is finding the right partner to mitigate their impact. We’re here to help. In 2021 we launched MEASURE, 100+ partners mapped against 350 consumer brands.
Now, it’s time to map the era of mitigation...
🚀 Introducing: Our MITIGATE Database
MITIGATE tracks 200 partners (and counting) who can help YOU reduce your emissions - across packaging, sourcing, logistics and more. Designed with small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in mind, 85% of these partners are mapped against the consumer brands they work with. We’ve mapped 350+ brands in total.
Intrigued? Here’s a snapshot of what to expect:
👉 Curious as to how the database has been structured? Check out our Database Category Guide.
👋 Don’t see a partner, or your company, listed? Add them here!
In today’s article we’re covering; key insights from the database, why it’s needed, how it can be used, the team behind it and questions you might ask before you ask them. Let’s dig in…
💡 Quick Insights:
Over the last 3 years we've noticed some key trends as we've tracked, updated and monitored the partners in this database:
Since 2021 the category with the most closures since our tracking started was Employee Engagement. Perhaps this reflects a wider shift from the need to engage employees in sustainability initiatives, to employees being 16% more engaged overall if they believe their company is genuinely committed to sustainability. Perhaps this reflects challenges we’ve heard commercialising, with brands unenthused about current market offerings.
The greatest number of partners, 40% to be precise, exists to support companies packaging. This makes sense when you consider that most consumer goods brands need packaging to either contain it or be able to ship them.
58% of partners listed have 50 employees or fewer, but partners are growing with the team frequently having to increase employee numbers when refreshing the database.
The most popular primary mitigation outcome at 10% is to reduce fossil fuel use, closely followed by increasing circularity at 9% and reducing impact on disposal at 8.5%.
80.5% of partners were founded before 2020. We’ve noticed many established companies in each industry specialising in lower impact options to differentiate and meet the demand.
Last updated: 14.07.24. We’ll be sharing new additions to MITIGATE via LinkedIn.
🔥 MITIGATE: What’s The Urgent Need?
The Challenge
Since we kicked off in 2021, the Following the Footprints team has witnessed an all-too-slow shift within the consumer goods industry. Brands have moved from measuring and setting targets for the seemingly distant year of 2030, to now grappling with the demanding task of actually meeting them as 2030 looms closer. SME Climate Hub found that 80% of businesses felt reducing emissions was a ‘high priority’. However, 66% felt prevented from doing so by a lack of knowledge and resources.
All consumer goods brands exist within a web of partners that help them achieve their goals; suppliers, contractors, agencies and more. Pressure has been mounting to reach targets, comply with regulation and bring down product emission intensity and company impact. The result? An explosion of potential partners.
However, every business is different. Different supply chains, different products, different priorities and importantly different emission hotspots. All the brands we’ve spoken to over the past 3 years have told us how hard it is to find the right partners - in fact, 90% of UK SMEs state one of the biggest barriers they face to reducing their impact is finding the right partner to help them. Working relationships aren’t well published, comparing options is time consuming, the options available are always changing and so many brands often don’t know where to start.
We can’t afford a delay in action. 1st August 2024 is Earth Overshoot Day - the date that marks when the earth has collectively run out of resources it can sustainably consume in the year (note: the UK’s overshoot day was on 3rd June). Despite their small size, collectively SMEs account for 25% of emissions in the UK. There’s no clearer message that to #MoveTheDate we must reduce, fast, and now.
Our Solution
At Following the Footprints, we don’t waste time persuading you on the ‘why’, we focus on the ‘how’. We track the activity of over 1000 FMCG brands, mapping who they’re working with across any sustainability related activities they do.
That’s why, today, we’re launching MITIGATE - your industry guide to 200 partners, all who work with consumer brands to reduce their negative environmental impact, from packaging and logistics, to web design, employee engagement and beyond.
So, what should your brand do next?
👉 Know the outcome you want to achieve? You can filter partners by their primary area of mitigation (e.g. reduce use of virgin materials) and search from there.
👉 Have a specific target area of operations your business wants help in addressing, like your packaging? Partners are also mapped against which part of your operations they can support you.
👉 Looking for inspiration of who other brands in your industry are working with? Browse the database to take inspiration from what other brands in your category have done.
Want a breakdown of what primary areas of mitigation and operation MITIGATE maps against? Check out our Database Category Guide.
Remember our MEASURE database? Well, they can work together…
MEASURE helped brands walk, so MITIGATE could help them run. Our aim is to help brands measure, mitigate, manage and then communicate their impact, so they can reach their sustainability targets in time for the planet. Whilst MEASURE is an important step…
We encourage brands to jump straight to MITIGATE. Sure, understanding your emissions better helps you know where to invest in reductions, but for resource constrained SMEs we encourage them not to spend all their budget on measuring emissions, as alone this does not bring us closer to a more sustainable future. No matter where you’ve started, the goal is absolute reductions either way. Each step, each inch, is progress, leading us further away from the climate crisis. This is what we’ve built MITIGATE to enable.
👋 The Team Behind The Database
At Following the Footprints we dig into how consumer goods businesses are innovating to be more sustainable. We’re an independent, volunteer-led media platform run by sustainability professionals, for sustainability professionals.
There’s a whole group of past and present Following the Footprints team members, and 3 years of work, behind this industry-first database. A particular thanks to Benjamin Logue, Rosalin Brolly and Leone Baron.
📍 Navigating our MITIGATE database
Who is this for?
This database is for any consumer goods brand, or any company that produces physical consumer goods. Our brand check: could you find your product on a shop’s shelf? If so, these mitigation partners are for you.
Who are we featuring?
‘Partners’ is a broad term. We’re exclusively focusing on companies that consumer goods brands have previously worked with to actively reduce their environmental impact. We’ve asked ourselves: have they worked with at least 1 FMCG brand, or is it clear how they could? It’s a global list, with a UK/Europe bias.
How have we categorised each partner?
More information around what information we’ve captured for each partner and how we have classified them can be found in the Database Category Guide.
How have we collected this information?
Records are compiled from information that is either publicly available, or sourced directly from partners (either via submission prior to MITIGATE launch, or our outreach). More detail on the sources for each category are in the Database Category Guide.
Things to keep in mind….
The MITIGATE database and its guide have been assembled to the best of the Following the Footprint’s team’s knowledge using information available from the websites and social media of the partners logged. The database acts as a guide and is open to interpretation.
We’d appreciate your understanding of a few things:
We're a volunteer led team. We’re refining this over time, and are aware of what additional work could go into this. If you’re also motivated to document the FMCG ecosystem, and its partners, consider joining our team.
Some partnerships may be historic. This is a record of which brands and which partners have worked together, regardless of whether they currently are.
Primary Mitigation Outcome: We’re aware this is largely dependent on the scope of the work that brands need. This information is open to interpretation, unless it was explicitly stated at its source. We have included this category to aid navigation and ease for brands themselves, and to give MITIGATE a stronger bias for action. Further detail can be found in our Database Category Guide.
We don’t have insight into every partner, or every brand. We’re not experts in their unique offering, and so wholeheartedly admit that there will be margin for error. We appreciate your understanding of this, and any way you can work with us to suggest edits on records and constantly refine this resource is much appreciated.
We have not included technologies that support FMCG brands in managing their supply chain, if they are not designed explicitly to mitigate their impact whilst doing so. Visibility into your supply chain doesn’t automatically result in more sustainable practices.
🧠 FAQs
How can I submit a partner? Submitting a partner is easy! Whether it's your own company, a company you have worked with, or one you admire, all it takes is a few minutes filling in a form.
How can I edit a partner? See something you would like to change? We got you! Just fill in this form and we will pick it up.
Will this be kept up to date? Yes, we’ll be constantly reviewing, updating and editing this database as more partners are submitted and more partnerships are announced. We’ll be posting our updates on our LinkedIn, so be sure to follow along so you don’t miss out!
How do I know who to trust? Ultimately, that’s up to you. We’ve included founded dates, number of employees and brands they’ve already worked with to help you make this choice.
Can I share this database with a friend? Absolutely we are ALL about sharing resources! Share the link to subscribe to Following the Footprints here and the link will land in their inbox.
There are a lot of companies - can I filter it further? Yes! Use the filter function to narrow down your search. The best place to start is to look at the 'target area of operations'.
Why is this page not listed on our website? For the first few weeks, we’re offering early access to the database exclusively to subscribers. After that, we’ll list it. We’re an independent platform, this database is free, and every subscriber supports our little business to grow even further.
That’s it from us! Like what you see? Share this article with a friend. It’s only useful if it’s used, so we appreciate your support in spreading the word.
Want more from Following the Footprints? We share resources, two weekly newsletters, in-depth brand interviews, an open source events calendar and more. Check out our website.
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