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Face To Face
The Being in the audience to hear Sir David Attenborough speak at a BBC Studios presentation Dan Grant, licensing director of Danilo describes as the “the light bulb moment” which clinched the greeting card and calendar business not only forming its ‘green team’, but instigated seismic changes to its product design, ways of working and the setting of its ultimate sustainable goals. PG was all ears as Dan and Claire Bates, Danilo’s marketing manager (and fellow Green Team mate) recorded a podcast for the new Products of Change sustainable hub about the business’ environmental journey and its green path of the future. While Danilo has always been a responsible and ethical business it has only been in the last year or so that it has propelled its sustainability thrust towards the top of its agenda - and has put courage behind its convictions to elicit real change on its product design, internal processes as well as in relationships with suppliers, retailers and licensors.
In less than a year, it has reduced its use of cellowrapping on its greeting cards by 85%, on its calendars by 30%, redesigned its desk calendars to be plastic-free, instigated environmental improvements into the everyday working practices of the company, has planted over 23,000 trees through its collaboration with Ecologi and is now charging confidently towards become a climate positive business by 2024. 24
PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE
Team
Given this environmental vigour it is not surprising that Danilo was one of the first companies to pledge its support to Products of Change, a new membership organisation (that is affiliated to Progressive Greetings’ owners, Max Publishing) that is committed to helping businesses on their respective sustainable journeys. And having made such progress in a relatively short period, Danilo ‘Green Team’ maestros, Dan Grant (licensing director) and Claire Bates (marketing manager) were persuaded to share what measures they have put in place and also their plans for the future on the eco front on the POC platform. On the podcast/webinar Dan reveals that the motivation behind Danilo’s sustainable changes falls into three areas -
Above: Dan Grant, Danilo’s licensing director speaking on the Products of Change webinar/podcast. Left: BBC Blue Planet is one of Danilo’s many licensing agreements. Below: All Danilo’s desk calendars are now plastic-free.
personal, the Danilo business drive and the industry responsibility as a whole. From his personal perspective, Dan stresses that he is “very conscious of what we can all do on an individual basis” and sees this very much as the start. However, it was being in the same room as Sir David Attenborough and hearing him speak at an event organised by the BBC (through which Danilo produces the Planet Earth calendar and diary products under licence) that really struck home for Dan. “He is such an inspirational man. And the messages he delivered made me sit up and really think how, as we supply millions of paper products we have a real opportunity to change how we do this - we can do something about this; we can lead the way,” said Dan recalling the “light bulb moment”. He recognised how Danilo, as a business, could look at its processes