Celebrating Earth Day: sustainability progress overview

tms (formerly The Marketing Store) remains committed to managing our impact and taking responsibility to tackle the climate crisis. Over the past year, we are proud to have made important progress in sustainability innovation, both for our clients and within our own organization.

Amy Zettlemoyer-Lazar, VP Global Sustainability and Innovation, said, “Sustainability activities are accelerating within our industries due to collaborative efforts between suppliers and customers that are led by our passionate employees around the globe. We wouldn’t be where we are today without the collective hard work of all those involved in driving change forward.”

Learn about all our recent sustainability efforts in the overview below:

Better Future Blueprint

Alongside our parent company, HAVI, we made the commitment to inspire a better future for people, communities and the planet, establishing the Better Future Blueprint to define our path forward toward advancing more sustainable solutions. Read about these commitments here.

So far, we’ve established a network of sustainability champions among tms (formerly The Marketing Store) and HAVI employees — a group that we’ll be expanding in 2022 — and we’re ramping up for additional exciting Better Future Blueprint (BFB) projects this year.

Science Based Targets

Part of BFB and a wider HAVI enterprise-wide commitment, we have also taken another milestone step toward making our customers’ supply chains even more sustainable by signing up to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). As an SBTi member, we have formally committed to cutting carbon emissions from our operations by 40% per metric ton of goods delivered by 2030. We have also enrolled in the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) to disclose sustainability information while complying with the requirement of the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) to publicly report progress.

Happy Meal Sustainability

After many years of partnering with McDonald’s to deliver unique Happy Meal experiences, in late 2021, we had the chance to work with our client to establish the goal of introducing more sustainable Happy Meal toys globally by 2025.

Our recent McDonald’s Germany Happy Meal program is a great example of this work in action.

Packaging Sustainability

As of December 2020, all HAVI-sourced in-scope primary guest packaging that is distributed across more than 100 McDonald’s markets worldwide is Chain of Custody certified. This means that wood fiber comes from recycled sources or forests certified to one of two globally recognized standards for responsible forest management: Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) standard or a Programme for Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) national standard.

Working closely across 60+ markets globally, we have also developed an automated dashboard for sustainable packaging roadmaps. This has been rolled out as a consistent format to track progress at aggregated Global and market level. This automated platform is continually evolving to inform strategic decision making in meeting McDonald’s 2025 sustainable packaging goals and commitments.

Planet Mark Certification

For the first time, our global headquarters received the Planet Mark certification, and our European operations based in London, Leeds, Paris and Duisburg were certified for the second year in a row. In addition, our Downers Grove Chicago, Stockley Park London, Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai offices’ activities were included in the certification for the first year.

Additionally, our Head of Sustainability, Pamela Stathaki, won this year’s ‘Sustainability Influencer’ award, and our organization was also awarded for ‘Carbon Reduction by Intensity’ based on data submitted for the annual Planet Mark certificate.

Debbie Bassi, Manager of Office Services, said “The Planet Mark certification process has taught me a great deal about sustainability opportunities within the office, and we look forward to implementing additional changes like composting recycling to reduce waste going to the landfills. It’s exciting to play a role in HAVI’s commitment to Science Based Target reductions.”

We’re in the process of pursuing Planet Mark certification for year ending 2021 and look forward to continuing to partner with Planet Mark to achieve the reductions needed to pursue certifications in the future.

Sustainability Employee Engagement in Hong Kong  

In December 2021, nearly 50 employees from our Hong Kong office joined together to clean up Angler’s Beach. This event also enabled raising funds for a local charity that delivers free meals for lower-income families.

Also within the past year, the Hong Kong Team also partnered with a local NGO, The Green Earth, which seeks to influence communities to embrace green citizen responsibilities and help establish a sustainable living environment now and for future generations.

Most recently in March, the founder of The Green Earth, Edwin Lau, hosted a virtual event with over 140 of our colleagues around Asia and our vendor partners. He discussed waste challenges as well as how lifestyle, culture and mode of business affect the environment and how individuals and businesses can spark change.