We are living through a climate emergency, and only a dramatic shift in behaviours will keep global heating to below the point of no return.

The London Waste and Recycling Board (LWARB) have developed programmes to accelerate London’s transition to a low carbon circular economy, but they needed a powerful new name, identity and message to cut through to London’s businesses and boroughs and citizens and inspire them to act.

Insight
Our research showed that a massive step-change is needed to galvanise people to respond. The work LWARB were doing was ground-breaking, but their increasingly irrelevant name and formal brand style was not capable of delivering the necessary impact. They needed a singular, powerful message, with an unmissable reason WHY to deliver cut-through and energise the city and its inhabitants to act.

We also identified that they needed to build a positive story from what can easily become a desperately negative one. There are real actionable steps that everyone can take which will make the difference: from an individual using a reusable coffee cup or sharing a drill with a neighbour, to an entrepreneur creating insulation materials from waste feathers from the poultry industry, to boroughs innovating new systems to maximise recycling in flats.

Ideas
We encapsulated their focus on reducing consumption-based emissions from plastics, food, textiles, electricals and the built environment into one thought – stuff. It’s time to turn a critical eye on all the stuff we make, buy and consume every day.

ReLondon – revolutionising our relationship with stuff by helping London waste less and reuse, repair, share and recycle more. The Re in the name gives enormous flexibility, and hints at all the actions we can take to make the change.

We simplified and focused their vision to act as a clarion call and a reminder of the importance of everyone playing their part: Our vision is of a future without waste, where the way we make, consume and dispose of stuff actively tackles the climate crisis and protects our planet.

Impact
We created a dynamic and flexible identity system to validate their positioning as an agent of transformational change in our capital by:

- Using nature’s warning colours of black and yellow to demonstrate the urgency of their mission;

- weaving the organisation into the fabric of London with a typeface rooted in the history of the city; and

- communicating the breadth of “stuff” in our lives through an accessible iconography system.

We provided all the tools and assets needed to roll their new brand and messaging out across every facet of their work – simple office templates, social templates, assets for their new website, a detailed messaging book, and a partner comms pack to launch the change. We even delivered a sticker to put on their existing collateral – bang on brand with their “re-use” message.