Winner: Bacardi Limited - Good Spirited: Building a Sustainable Future
Bacardi’s “Good Spirited: Building a Sustainable Future” program was designed to showcase a heritage, ingrained in the company since inception, to reduce environmental impact in three areas critical to making its world-class products: sourcing, packaging and operations.
The program also served as an opportunity to engage employees, trade partners, and consumers while raising awareness of a heritage of sustainable business practices. Internally, the aim was to create passionate ambassadors among its approximately 5,500 employees.
Pre-launch outreach became a priority in order to engage brand teams, operations leaders and to recruit Green Champions – employees passionate about sustainability. Before launch, 50 Green Champions were recruited to lead activations across the Company’s 75 offices. Green Champions received advance access to content, all of which needed to be easily adaptable by local markets.
To drive greater engagement and to demonstrate that everyone can make an impact, employee spokespeople at all levels and across functions were identified and prepped in advance of launch. By leveraging employees beyond the C-suite as spokespeople, Bacardi would be able to engage more markets, teams and levels.
Nearly half of these employees were also identified for external features, an act Bacardi believed would generate pride and excitement, while helping achieve external communications objectives of raising the company profile in the media; garnering greater support from regulatory, environmental, NGOs, and Corporate Social Responsibility community; while connecting with sales and commercial partners influenced by CSR policies.
Green Champions continue to activate programs that drive changes in behavior, energy use and costs. One example was a commitment with American Forests to plant a tree when BACARDÍ rum sells in select states. This led to 11%+ sales in Idaho and 7%+ in Oregon.
Honorable Mentions:
• Bank of America - Recycle Now: Small Act, Big Impact
• Continental Resources - We've Changed the World: Embrace the Change, Make a Difference
• CVS Health and RF|Binder - CVS Health Celebrates the Spirit of Volunteerism on #GivingTuesday
• MasterCard - Girls4Tech
• Pacific Gas and Electric - LGBT Ally Program
• Singer Associates, Inc. - The New Stanford Hospital
• Viacom - Talent for Good