Nat Geo Kids’ Impact & Purpose Report 2022

Read all about our aims, achievements, and things to improve on...

Welcome to our Impact & Purpose Report 2022!

As publishers of National Geographic Kids magazine in the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, this is a really exciting moment in our story, because it’s our first as a certified B Corporation.

What does that mean? Put simply, your fave mag is still just as awesome – jam-packed with jaw-dropping pictures and facts about our amazing planet – but the way we operate our business has changed for the better! We’ve made a legal promise to use our business as a force for good – to ensure our activities protect and care for our local communities, employees, the environment, and in turn, our readers’ futures.

We can’t say that 2022 was an easy year. The ongoing Cost of Living Crisis, COVID-19, Brexit and tensions in other parts of the world caused hardship for many customers across our territories, and impacted our sales, too. While that’s been challenging, it’s meant that we’ve become more creative and try new ways of working – which has been good fun, too!

2022 also saw the launch of some exciting new avenues for National Geographic Kids. First, we began a brand-new series of quarterly bookazines, diving into the weird and wonderful world of puzzles, habitats, history and big cats in 100 brilliant pages! Plus, we created an NG KiDS shop, selling specially-curated products that help kids learn, explore and complement the topics we write about in the magazine – they’re eco-friendly too, of course! We’re looking forward to telling you more about those in next year’s report.

Here’s to another year of fun ahead!

Impact and Purpose Report 2022

Read on to discover more about what Creature & Co., the business that produces and publishes National Geographic Kids here in the UK, was up to in 2022.

You can jump between sections using the links below:

OUR PURPOSE

In this part of our report, we outline what we stand for – the mission and values that drive our work.

Our Mission

We aim to inform, inspire and empower people to act on the world’s challenges. How do we do that? Through engaging and accurate storytelling and experiences for National Geographic Kids readers.

In 2021, we set ourselves the goal of educating 48 million children and caregivers through our work by 2025 (from a baseline of 24 million). At Creature & Co., our purpose is to create lasting, positive change that makes the world a greener, fairer, and more prosperous place for all.

We operate in a virtuous circle: our mission drives our purpose, our purpose drives our growth, and our growth helps us achieve our mission. We continue to work towards our ambitious target!

United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

We are passionate about progressing the Global Goals – a universal framework for creating a greener, fairer world by 2030.

These Goals guide our creative work, aligning our content to them. Plus, we spread awareness and education on the Goals both explicitly and implicitly to our audiences.

OUR PEOPLE

In this part of the report, we focus on the work we’ve done in the last year to better support the people that work for us.

This year we focused on:

– Better supporting women in the workplace
– Improving staff access to mental and physical wellbeing services

Here are some of the highlights:

– 91% of employees agreed or strongly agreed with the statement ‘I’m proud to work for Creature & Co.’ and ‘I would recommend Creature & Co. as a great place to work‘
– We welcomed three new employees – a full-time Finance Assistant, part-time Subscriptions Manager and part-time Customer Service Assistant

Diversity and Inclusion

Our employees filled out an anonymous survey about themselves, to provide information that will help us improve and measure diversity within our business. We’re using it to help ensure everyone who works for us feels welcome, valued and included, no matter their age, race, background, gender, sexuality or ability.

In the survey, 100% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statement ‘Creature & Co. values diversity.’ But only 48% agreed with the statement ‘Creature & Co. builds diverse teams.’

We know we have more work to do here – we aim to build a more diverse team that better reflects the city of London, where our main office is based!

Gender Identity

While there are more women than men at Creature and Co., proportionally there are more men in managerial positions.

What are we doing to make positive change?

– Introduced Enhanced Maternity and Paternity Pay
– Given every employee an annual training and development budget
– Introduced a policy to advertise jobs internally (which increases opportunities for promotion and progress for existing employees)

We are planning to introduce a policy to support women going through menopause and implement menopause training / learning for all employees.

Racial and Ethnic Diversity

We compared information about the ethnic diversity of our employees with the same kind of information for the whole of the UK and London (we felt it important to include London as this is where our main office is based).

Our recruiter (the company that helps us find new employees) currently removes details that could reveal peoples’ ethnic and racial identities from their job applications.

Next year, we will ask the recruiter not to send applications to us unless we have a diverse range of people who’ve applied. We will also schedule racial and ethnic diversity and anti-racism training for all employees.

Financial Stability and Career Development

We want our employees to feel happy and fulfilled at work. A big part of that is making sure they’re paid fairly for what they do, feel excited to keep learning, and motivated to continue doing awesome work! Here we look into that in more detail…

What have we done to create positive change?

– Given all employees access to an Independent Wealth Advisor to assist with money queries
– Increased pension contributions for every employee, paying above the legal minimum

Plus, this year we became a Living Wage Employer! This means that we voluntarily pay our employees a wage that keeps up with the cost of living.

Next year, we’ll support and encourage our employees to use their annual training budget. We’ll also create a Bonus Policy so all employees can see and understand our targets.

OUR IMPACT

In this part of the report, we focus on the work we’ve done in the last year to improve the impact our business has on the planet.

B Corp Certification

In late 2022, at the end of a two-year journey, we submitted our B Corp Impact Assessment. After a thorough evaluation and verification process, we’re proud to announce Creature & Co. is a certified B Corp, with an initial score of 102.3. That’s a great start, but we’re looking forward to improving it in 2023 and beyond!

We’ve worked hard to ensure the changes made on our B Corp journey are designed to be long-term and sustainable. Being part of this global community of B Corps is inspiring us to do better, and it holds us accountable for our impact on people and planet.

Read our article to find out more about what being a B Corp means.

Magazine Production

At Creature and Co., we have a physical supply chain for printing and distributing our magazines in the UK, Australia and New Zealand, as well as service-based suppliers in two locations.

This year we focused on:

– Laying foundations for working with suppliers to measure our Scope 3*** greenhouse gas emissions
– Committing to sourcing and producing locally (in country)
– Visiting our suppliers
– Mapping our Australian supply chains

So, what have we done to create positive change?

– All our new suppliers now fill out a social and environmental impact survey to help us decide whether or not to work with them
– All new suppliers must sign our Code of Conduct and Code of Ethics policies
– Mapped the Australia and New Zealand supply chains
– Circulated surveys to suppliers in Australia and New Zealand
– Switched from compostable bags to 100% paper envelopes for our Australia and New Zealand magazines
– Continued to save and re-sell unsold magazines, repackaging them as double issues
– Visited our UK printers and finishers – with more visits scheduled for next year!

Plus, next year, our UK suppliers will begin measuring the amount of packaging that is created by the production of our magazine. This is a requirement for incoming EPR tax and will help us measure our Scope 3 emissions. We’ll also focus on understanding and reducing the amount of waste our business creates.

Did you know? 100% of our magazines and their components carry FSC or PEFC certifications, confirming the paper was produced sustainably.

Climate Action

In 2022, we tackled our contributions to the climate crisis by implementing the following positive changes…

– Committed to net-zero Scope 1* and Scope 2** emissions by 2030
– Started recording annual emissions with Compare Your Footprint reporting software
– Measured our in-office and working-from-home energy use, plus employee commuter emissions
– Successfully petitioned our office’s landlord to switch to renewable energy once the current energy contract ends
– Switched to a renewable energy supplier at our Kent-based Customer Service office

Our biggest energy use comes from our employees working from home. When fuel costs stabilise we will incentivise employees to move to renewable suppliers or tariffs.

Next year, we will start measuring our Scope 3 emissions for the magazine. This will allow us to see the impact of our reduced materials and packaging. Our Customer Services team will also move to a waste supplier that provides weight measurements and reports the carbon impact of the waste created.

* Scope 1 greenhouse gas emissions are those produced directly by the company. ** Scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions are produced indirectly by the company (e.g., when electricity for heating our office is produced on our behalf). *** Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions are those the company is indirectly responsible for (e.g., as a result of buying products from suppliers).

National Geographic Kids Sustainability Hub

This year, we achieved our goal of launching a Sustainability Hub on the National Geographic Kids UK website.

While working towards our B Corp certification, as a team, we learned more about our supply chain and production process and wanted to share that knowledge with our readers! We also created a timeline that shows our eco-friendly journey.

We update the Sustainability Hub with news, our eco efforts and a fun animation that shows readers how our magazine is made and distributed to homes and shops!

OUR COMMUNITY

In this part of the report, we focus on the work we’ve done in the last year to improve the impact our business has on people outside of our employees.

Giving Back

This year, we had exciting plans to create a scheme that gives free magazines to children who need them most. Sadly, the increasing cost of paper has forced us to put these plans temporarily on hold – but we plan to revive them as soon as we can!

Meanwhile, we’ve continued to give free copies of National Geographic Kids to people and organisations that need them. We also offer charities free or discounted advertising rates.

Here’s our giving in numbers:

During 2022, we also collected 800 books and gifted them to the Children’s Book Project. At Christmas, instead of a traditional office ‘Secret Santa’, we collected 216 food items and gifted them to the Euston Foodbank.

Free Charity Ads in NGK UK

Last year, we gave £33,187.50 worth of discounted advertising to brilliant organisations such as WDC, RSPCA, PDSA & WaterBear.

This year, we increased that figure to £58,067.50 worth of discounted advertising to organisations such as WDC, Tate, RSPCA & Raspberry Pi Foundation. Woohoo!

Free Charity Ads in NGK Australia and New Zealand

Last year, we gave $31,900 worth of free advertising to fantastic organisations such as National Foundation for the Deaf, Starlight Foundation, Jane Goodall Roots & Shoots, MS Readathon & WaterBear.

This year, we increased that figure to $46,400 worth of free advertising to organisations such as National Foundation for the Deaf, Children’s Climate Prize, Starlight Foundation, Jane Goodall Roots & Shoots & WaterBear!

Volunteering

Our employees have the option to use up to two days of paid work time volunteering for worthy causes. We’re a passionate bunch here, and we’re proud to say that we’ve used this time to support a number of wide-ranging initiatives and organisations.

Planet Purbeck

Managing Director, Pete, uses his skills in communications and marketing to help engage his local community with the issue of climate change. Read all about it in our article.

Invictus Wellbeing

Editorial Director, Tim, uses his skills in communicating challenging topics to children to engage kids in chats about mental health.

Greenwich & Bexley Community Hospice

Senior Creative, Oliver, became a Christmas elf for the day to fundraise and spread cheer at the charity’s annual Christmas Grotto.

Second Chance Café

Senior Account Manager, Chloe, lent a helping hand cooking, serving and cleaning at a community-run café that supports those facing poverty and social isolation.

Girlguiding

Content Director, Gemma, used her written skills to create engaging content for members’ parents and drum up new volunteer interest.

Our Customers

Our customers range across grandparents, parents and individuals buying gifts for family and friends. We also have schools that buy our magazine for their pupils to read in the classrooms or library.

In 2022, our Customer Services team began recording their performance:

OUR ACTIONS

In this part of our report, we focus on the work we’ve done in the last year to improve the impact our business has on the planet.

Our Mission

Creature & Co.’s mission is to inform, inspire and empower people to act on the world’s challenges. We do that through engaging and accurate storytelling and experiences, in part by publishing National Geographic Kids magazine.

In 2021 (from a baseline of 24 million), we set ourselves the goal of educating 48 million people through our work by 2025. Our purpose is to create lasting, positive change that makes the world a greener, fairer, and more prosperous place for all.

This year, to help us achieve our mission and reach more people, we launched a brand-new series of quarterly special issues, diving into the wonderful worlds of puzzles, history, habitats and more!

Here’s our reach in numbers:

Our Educational Impact

As our loyal readers will know, Nat Geo Kids magazines are filled with fun – yet educational – features about science, nature, history, geography and world culture. And our readers’ parents agree, too!

In 2022, we conducted an advertising survey with 5,687 buyers across the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. 92% of all respondents said that they either read the magazine themselves, or read it alongside their kids – showing that we reach a wider audience than just our subscribers.

Plus, we recorded some wonderful quotes from customers. Here are a couple of our faves!

United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

Last year, we began recording the total number of features and articles we publish in our magazines and on our websites that support or promote the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) – as well as the amount of people they reach.

We count an article or feature if it explains a world issue covered by the UN SDGs and includes possible solutions to that issue.

Click here to learn more about the SDGs!

natgeokids.com

Below, we show how many people have seen our SDGs-related content on the National Geographic Kids websites:

We’ve published 69 web articles related to Goal 15 – Life on Land, as well as 35 related to Goal 14 (Life Below Water) and 30 related to Goal 10 (Reduced Inequalities). And that’s just the website!

National Geographic Kids magazines

Here, we show how many people have seen our SDGs-related content in our printed editions of Nat Geo Kids magazine across the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand combined…

We worked these numbers out by taking the number of times an article supporting each Goal was featured and multiplying it by the combined newstrade and subscription sales data for that issue. We then multiplied that by four, to reflect the average number of people who read each issue. We’re pretty proud of the results!