ESG

Environmental, Social & Governance at Media.Monks

Read our 2022 ESG Report

Taking action NOW.

At Media.Monks, we shift industries forward and pave the path towards ambitious outcomes so our clients and our people can realize their full potential for growth. Our mission is to harness technology and creativity as forces for good to make a positive material impact on people, the planet and society as a whole.

For us, like many others, 2023 was a time of reset – a year of cultivating Culture and Governance. Globally, there was growing recognition of the impact of environmental, social and governance factors on business models, and increased efforts to steer economic activities towards sustainability. Developments in disclosure regulation and sustainability reporting highlight the importance of transparency and quantifiable outcomes, eliciting the need for quality data, as well as both internal and external data gathering.

In 2023 we focused on streamlining our activities, processes and governance to bring us closer to our goal of achieving net zero by 2040 – for example, aligning with the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) to set formal science-based targets and creating our transitioning plan.

The year was a challenging one across our industry as global macroeconomic conditions put pressure on many of our clients, particularly in the technology sector. But while others are talking about the future, we believe the future is too late. The world around us is happening now. Culture is happening now. Climate change is happening now. And we are committed to taking action – now.

True to their spirit, our talented people responded positively to both the challenging conditions and our drive for efficiency, so creating agile practices, policies and programmes that met the needs of and fostered our diverse workforce was a top priority for us in 2023. We also continued to focus on closing the representation gap for talent in our industry by providing training and fellowships.

Monk Thoughts As the advertising and marketing services industry grapples with the ongoing push to hold agencies accountable for delivering growth for companies, we must also hold ourselves accountable for the emissions that we create on behalf of our clients, as part of our value chains.

Regina Romeijn

Global Head of ESG

We are committed to putting our values into practice.

Work

Working to Make the World a Better Place • In 2023, we celebrated creativity and ingenuity to produce impactful messages that resonated with the masses—and we were honored to be recognized with numerous awards for our work.
Girls Not Brides: Juanita & Roberto’s Wedding

Despite laws that prohibit it, more than 300,000 girls in Mexico have been sold into marriage with older adults. As part of a campaign to expose this injustice and call for enforcement of the law, we invited all of Mexico to the wedding of Don Roberto and Juanita, a minor-aged girl, in a video that went viral.
GVB: The Travel Poet [De Reis Dichter]

After the disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the world's first travel poet, Roziena Salihu, crafted and delivered spoken words while travelling on Amsterdam’s public transport, adding an emotional layer to the routine of commuting that helped build a connection between the people of Amsterdam and their city.
Coach: The Pleasure Pursuit

In partnership with Coach, we created a WebGL platform that tells the story of artist Tom Wesselmann and explores the themes of life's three pleasure principles: love, wonder, and play.
Gorilla Rx Wellness: Black Women Get Us Higher

As part of our Decoded.Monks’ long-running Small Business Accelerator program that supports BIPOC-owned small businesses with agency time and funding towards media, production and other resources, we worked alongside activist and entrepreneur Kika Keith to champion and empower Black women and address the historical injustices within the cannabis industry.
LAMDA Development: The Ellinikon Centre

Spotlighting the wonders of The Ellinikon – Europe’s largest urban regeneration project – we worked with LAMDA Development to transform an iconic, 1,800+ m2 airport hangar in Greece into an interactive museum.
Red Wing: Builders Exchange Program

To get makers in virtual worlds excited about becoming tradespeople, we invited gamers to design tiny homes inside Roblox, and then Red Wing built several of them for real in Denver, Colorado for those experiencing homelessness.
Learn more about these projects.
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Our Responsibility to the World.

We commit to fight climate change. We aim to be net zero by 2040.

We reaffirmed our commitment to SBTi’s Corporate Net-Zero Standard while advancing the quality of our data via a new software system for GHG emissions calculation. Thanks to an improved data collection process, increased accuracy of our energy consumption data and less reliance on extrapolation, we were able to more accurately calculate emissions from our own operations this year. We plan to formulate a transition plan which should allow for significant progress in achieving our emission reduction targets.

We commit to increase impactful work. We aim to deliver 20% of total revenue on For Good projects by 2040.

We increased the number of Purpose-driven clients and continued to assist our clients in accentuating purposeful messaging to create environmental and social impact through our work. Our work embodies our ESG strategy. We identify the daily impact of – and in – our work to better ourselves, our methods and our outcomes.

People Fulfillment.

We commit to building a diverse culture and increase diverse representation.

We saw relative consistency in our representation numbers, despite the addition of a technology-based practice. We attribute this to the power of our programs – like the Diverse Slate Approach to hiring – and our commitment to empowering women in the workforce and leadership. We also reinforced our commitment to purposefully discover diverse talent and offer training for underrepresented groups, helping our people develop skills, connections and careers.

By prioritising people and reducing our environmental footprint, while also maximizing purpose-driven impact, and investing in the future of work, here’s how we’re working toward making the world a better place.

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