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Ocean Outdoor has announced the first results of its most recent sustainability initiative, working with agency partners to establish a rigorous and long term form of corporate climate activism using Out of Home (OOH) ad spend.

Under its Pinwheel platform, a percentage of Ocean’s 2024 revenue uplift has been given to four marine based projects that remove atmospheric carbon and are driving lasting change by helping to repair the planet’s natural ecosystems.

All of the projects are verified by Pinwheel and were selected in a vote which invited clients and agency partners to decide which of the high potential projects to put a portion of their advertising spend towards.

The first full 12 months of the Ocean and Pinwheel scheme has resulted in direct investment for:

• Empower which enables the tracking by volume, type and photo evidence of plastic waste using blockchain technology. The money will pay for a frontline plastic waste centre in rural India, cleaning up and educating the community about using less plastic
• The creation of new Coralive restoration projects in Kenya and Mauritius to grow, harvest and outplant coral onto the reef and build local capacity
• The protection by SEE Turtles of an estimated 300,000 turtle hatchlings and nesting sites in four countries
• Hourglass Climate, working for Project Vesta, which will use the funding to assess novel climate coastal carbon capture technology to safely transfer CO2 from the atmosphere into the oceans

Ocean will continue to roll out the Pinwheel programme in 2025, working with the same four beneficiaries.

Ocean Outdoor UK chief commercial officer Nick Shaw said the projects meet long term carbon sequestration targets, while significantly supporting biodiversity and social co-benefits.

“We launched this programme as an experiment, and in the first year it has performed way beyond our expectations. That’s down to our remarkable agency partners who have embraced the scheme and made it a success,” he said.

“Funding is hard to come by, but the environmental scientists running these projects have told us how important this money is. Going forward, we hope more advertisers will come on board, allowing us to scale how Out of Home, our agency partners and the wider advertising industry can lead by example.”  

Scott Whitton, head of investment at Mindshare, said: “Ocean came to us in early 2024 to collaborate on a charity-driven strategy—an initiative that perfectly aligns with our ‘Good Growth’ business pillar. We wholeheartedly support this innovative initiative and are proud to have contributed to their carefully vetted environmental projects.”

The scientists leading the four projects have explained how the revenue will be used.

Aki Allahgholi, founder of Coralive, said: “With the generous support of Ocean Outdoor, we will enable coastal communities in Kenya as well as Mauritius to engage in coral regeneration efforts through capacity building, hands on training, coral nursery establishments, and eventually coral outplanting efforts. Coralive will guide throughout the process with knowhow and experience transfer to make this project a self-sustaining process. We encourage other partners to support these initiatives through direct impact investments, which are needed now more than ever.”

Brad Nahill, President of SEE Turtles, said: “Funding from Ocean Outdoor and their clients through Pinwheel’s platform has been critical in our effort to support important turtle nesting beaches worldwide. This support will help keep community organisations working to protect sea turtles in Venezuela, Mexico, Panama and Costa Rica, helping these partners save an estimated 300,000 hatchlings across the four beaches." 

Empower.eco provides digital solutions that enable transparent tracking and verification, ensuring plastic waste collectors can access funding based on their documented efforts. This accountability is key to making plastic recovery financially viable, sustainable and scalable.

Migle Labeikyte, Empower.eco commercial product manager, said: "When it comes to fixing the ‘dump now, clean later’ waste management faults of the past, funding is essential to driving real impact in plastic recovery and social inclusion. Together with partners like Pinwheel and Ocean Outdoor, we are empowering informal waste workers who are on the front lines of tackling plastic pollution.

“To date, our platform has tracked over 1.2 billion kgs of material, ensuring full transparency in waste recovery and recycling efforts. By aligning incentives, technology, and the right partnerships, we can turn waste collection into a sustainable livelihood while ensuring both environmental and socio-economic impact are measured and rewarded. We look forward to our continued partnership, driving lasting change as we move towards a world without waste."

Dr Grace Andrews, executive director of Hourglass Climate, said: "The contributions from Ocean Outdoor have allowed Hourglass Climate to do best-in-class environmental assessments of a novel climate mitigation technology, opening the door for future projects and eventually, large-scale removal of ocean and atmospheric carbon pollution."

Under its broader sustainability strategy, Ocean already commits two per cent of its reported UK revenue in advertising space to charities, non-profits and organisations that are working to reverse climate change and repair the planet. Six UK based charities are currently benefiting under the Drops in the Ocean 2025 programme.

To find out more about the Ocean Pinwheel project visit https://oceanoutdoor.com/pinwheel-partnership/