Givsly, the purpose-led advertising and marketing company, today announced its commitment to reduce the carbon impact from their events in 2024 by 45 percent, which will be a large step forward as the company moves toward achieving net zero by 2026. The effort begins with the launch of its annual Season Without Swag campaign and will extend to its Karaoke for Causes events, which are expanding to multiple cities, and to their annual Cannes Impact Hub.  

Givsly is challenging industry events to move away from the carbon neutral buzzword and ineffective offsetting to actually reduce carbon for a truly sustainable event process. The standard Givsly event only produces 1.1 tCO2e, which is already about 50% less compared to similar events.  

Givsly’s fourth Season Without Swag kicks-off today and will run through the end of the year. The campaign, which is on track to achieve a 3X rise in participants YOY, encourages agencies and brands to opt out of material gifts in favor of nonprofit donations. In 2023, Givsly contributed nearly $500K in donations from its platform and event activity, which has paved the way for its increasingly impactful events in 2024. Givsly will measure the carbon impact of each of its events for its partners as a part of the campaign to allow them greater visibility into their footprint. Several agencies including dentsu, EssenceMediacom, Hearts & Science, Initiative, Mediahub, Mindshare, Spark and UM have signed up to participate this year, and initial campaign sponsors include Affinity Solutions, Cardlytics, Cognitiv, Equativ, FOX, Hearst Magazines, IAS, InMobi, LoopMe, MobileFuse, Nativo, Nextdoor, Ogury, OpenX, OUTFRONT Media, Undertone, Vevo and Yieldmo.  

Marianne Gambelli, President, Advertising Sales, Marketing, & Brand Partnerships at FOX, said, “The FOX team is proud to again partner with Givsly to educate brands on the negative impact of unused swag and provide real solutions to reduce the climate impact of unnecessary swag with the Season Without Swag campaign. This has been a growing area of focus for our team as we’ve repeatedly seen that cutting out the swag isn’t only good for the climate, it’s good for our business and it delivers better results.”  

This year, the Season Without Swag campaign will include:  

• Do Good Bus - Working side-by-side with agency volunteers for a specific effort selected in partnership with agency and sponsor
• Agency Lobby Swag Donation Bins - Helps drive the donation of unwanted swag items to donate to shelters
• Thought Leadership Sessions - Relevant discussions in-house with agency partners to educate agency attendees on sustainability, purpose and more
• Impact Reports - Helps companies tell a compelling story about the impact of their efforts
• Awards - Participating companies and agencies that had the greatest impact will be recognized at an event in November

Additionally, Givsly’s Karaoke for Causes event, which saw industry-leading executives from dentsu, Mindshare, Spark and more performing for nonprofit causes, raised over $100K in 2023 in a single night. Due to its incredible success and rising agency participation, the event will expand to three cities in 2024 – Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. Executives have already signed on to participate from agencies like Canvas, Initiative and Spark.   

Following its activation at Cannes, The Impact Hub, which included a fully meatless menu, limited print signage and no swag, Givsly measured and offset their Cannes carbon emissions of approximately 55 tons, which came primarily from travel. This serves as the starting line for carbon reduction in 2024, and Givsly is sharing this number to push advertisers for greater awareness and transparency across the industry. Across all Givsly events, the focus will be on action over discussion – highlighting real ways brands can drive meaningful change and implement it immediately.  

“Values are shown through action — they aren’t something you just talk about. At Givsly, we are built on the foundation of putting our words into action, and this step forward will help others take the same approach for their events. There are far too many companies facilitating conversations around sustainability but not putting practice into action for themselves,” said Chad Hickey, founder and CEO of Givsly. “Givsly is taking a hard look at our own carbon impact, real ways to reduce it (not just offset it), and we challenge the industry to join us to move forward with purpose and intent.”  

To participate in Season Without Swag, visit: https://company.givsly.com/2023-season-without-swag/