Circular Yorkshire - Explaining The Benefits of a Circular Economy.
Logo Development and digital guide book design.
I had followed the good work of Circular Yorkshire for a while, attending a few of their seminars and workshops in the city of York as I progressed on my own journey to become a more sustainable and greener business. So I was delighted to get the opportunity to work with such a great organisation.
Circular Yorkshire is a part of the York and North Yorkshire Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), and their aim is to accelerate the transition to a circular economy across York and North Yorkshire through bringing stakeholders together and creating the conditions for a circular economy to flourish. Through this transition, they aim to not only address the challenge of climate change but can also strengthen the local economy, support communities to thrive and improve people’s lives - which I believe is more important that ever given the impacts COVID19 has had on small business.
The story.
In November 2019, they became the first LEP to start implementing a Circular Economy Strategy with the aim to stimulate the transition to a competitive and resilient circular economy across York and North Yorkshire. Our Circular Economy Strategy and Action Plan includes a series of phases, from understanding local circular economy opportunities to implementing demonstration projects and accelerating change. Action will be delivered across a number of systems – including sectors and places. They have prioritised sectors where moving towards a circular economy will contribute most to improving economic competitiveness and addressing climate change. Action will be targeted in agri-food, manufacturing, construction, transport, utilities, and the public sector.
“A circular economy is one where materials and resources do not travel in a linear direction towards landfill, instead they are fed back into the production process to avoid waste.”
And the shift towards this economy needs all businesses be onboard. It is not only a change in business and production process, but a total mindset shift. So it was our job to help promote the real benefits of making this necessary change!
The objective.
Working with copywriting partners InFusion Comms, who developed a compelling content strategy and copy for a series of digital guides, we focussed on key benefits of become more circular as a business.
We developed the idea of the 6 Benefits To Business that a circular economy can have, and created simple icons to represent key areas, including:
Building business resilience
Reducing and saving energy
Producing sustainable produce with purpose
Reducing waste costs
Increasing efficiency and productivity
Becoming a stand out brand
“Our goal was to make a complex concept appear simple, easy to implement and, importantly, appealing!”
The outcomes.
A series of online guides, or eguides, were developed to showcase the benefits of transitioning your business towards a circular model. Packed with practical tips and inspirational case studies of success, these guides offer a bitesized glimpse into the world of circular in a way that is not science-heavy, daunting, or preachy.
I produced a series of graphics, icons, and illustrations designed to help tell the circular story. And these illustrations were vital in the development of a short animated video, produced by our partners Feature Media, that was created alongside the eguides to bring all the content together into an accessible and attractive narrative.
Early on in the creative process it became clear that a branding update was required to bring the logo in line with revised brand colour schemes that were developed. So this was an excellent opportunity to give the logo a visual refresh, to modernise the branding elements such as the logo icon and typeface, and develop a more consistent and flexible logo system that included a variety of brand colour options that will give the team the assets needed to produce more branded content long into the future.
The guides, updated branding, animation and other marketing materials produced as part of this project were extremely well received by the local business community including the FSB and Chamber of Commerce, and this all led to the launch of Circular Yorkshire Month 2020 which is looking to be a resounding success!
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