Optima’s Thirty Things to Celebrate Turning 30
Date published: 27 September 2024 Updated: 16 December 2024
Hitting the big 3-0 as a business is no small feat. So, we’re taking a moment to celebrate this milestone with our team, clients, and the wider community.
To mark the occasion, we’re challenging ourselves to do ‘Thirty Things’ in our birthday year to celebrate our 30th on 21 March 2025. It’s a tall order, but we’ve got a plan – a manifesto, if you will – on how we’ll celebrate, commemorate, and share our 30th birthday.
It's easy to say, “Let's do thirty things to celebrate,” but life and work have a habit of getting in the way. Before you know it, you've only done nine things, hope no one notices, and move on. But no! We're making a firm commitment to see this through, and we'll be documenting our progress every step of the way.
This blog will record each of our thirty accomplishments – get ready to join us as we share the antics, activities and stories with you.
1/30: Offsetting our Emails
At Optima, we’re committed to reducing our digital carbon footprint as part of our broader sustainability efforts. Recognising the environmental impact of our digital communications, we’ve taken proactive steps to offset the carbon emissions generated by our emails.
While emails might seem harmless, their environmental impact is more significant than you might think. Each email generates around 4g of CO2 over its lifetime, as it’s stored and accessed multiple times across servers worldwide.
As part of our broader commitment to sustainability, we’ve partnered with mysquaremetre.co.uk to plant wildflower meadows near Stow, Lincolnshire, helping to offset the carbon produced by our outgoing emails.
We’ll regularly monitor our email volume and increase our planting efforts as needed to keep our communications as green as possible. This initiative is just one of the ways that as a business we are trying to operate more sustainably and reduce our environmental impact.
Completed: August 2024
2/30: Offsetting Our Carbon
Our commitment to sustainability has driven us to consider our company's carbon emissions and make efforts to offset this through eco-friendly practices and carbon offset projects. One significant step we’ve taken is planting 3,000 trees in Nepal, based on a detailed calculation of the carbon emissions generated by our business activities. We collaborated with the team at Evertreen to calculate our carbon footprint, covering everything from our studio’s energy use to daily operational emissions.
By planting trees in Nepal, we contribute to global reforestation efforts, helping to absorb CO2 and restore ecosystems. This initiative allows us to offset our carbon footprint and reflects our ongoing dedication to environmental responsibility. We plan to plant 3,000 trees every year if we can.
Completed: August 2024
3/30: Optima Moss Art
To keep our commitment to sustainability front and centre in all our minds, we’ve installed living artworks made from moss, to serve as a constant reminder of the broader impact our work has on the world. The Optima ‘world’ icon, central to our business vision, is a key feature of these installations, symbolising our dedication and shared values. Optima’s ‘world’ represents our awareness of the space we occupy and the influence we have – on our team, our suppliers, our clients (locally, nationally, and internationally), and the planet as a whole.
This isn’t about marketing or greenwashing – it’s about doing what’s right for our business, our community, and our planet. We chose moss for this installation not only because we love the greenery it brings to our office, where we already nurture a collection of plants, but because of its sustainable qualities:
- Low Carbon Footprint: Made from 100% natural, maintenance-free materials.
- No Soil Needed: Prevents soil erosion and conserves resources.
- Pesticide-Free: Naturally resistant to pests and diseases.
- Energy Efficient: Helps regulate indoor temperatures, reducing energy costs.
- Compostable: 100% natural and compostable materials.
- Minimal Environmental Impact: Less impactful than traditional landscaping or greenery.
While we already as a business do more than most, achieving Carbon Zero is challenging, and we know there’s always more we can do. We’re committed to continually improving, and part of that journey involves working more closely with our clients and suppliers and engaging with them, to share their visions, goals, and journeys, and to collaborate in ways that benefit not just our businesses, but the world.
Completed: August 2024
4/30: Pizza Party
Friday 6 September 2024, saw us continue our celebrations of reaching 30 years.
This was no ordinary Friday, we were joined by Antonio Carlos Garcia, a renowned world pizza champion, who indulged us with his award-winning Neapolitan pizzas with all kinds of authentic toppings from the classic staples of margarita and pepperoni to his mouthwatering Franco Pepe and Vegetarian Ortolana pizzas.
It's fair to say all our team enjoyed these world-class pizzas and of course, the pizzas were accompanied with perfectly paired wines and beers as we toasted three fantastic decades serving our clients.
Completed: September 2024
5/30: Chocolate Gifting Box
As part of our Thirty Things campaign celebrating Optima’s 30th birthday, we’re sending out a limited run of 120 bespoke chocolate gift boxes to some lucky recipients. Each box contains four personalised Tony’s Chocolonely® bars that represent our different Optima teams.
Inspired by the classic Celebrations®, our playful Creations box includes:
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‘Make it Pop’: White Chocolate with Raspberry Popping Candy – celebrating the vibrant energy and creativity of our design team.
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‘Busy Bees’: Tony’s Milk Chocolate with Honey, Almond and Nougat – symbolising our dynamic client services and support team.
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‘Dark Mode’: Tony’s Extra Dark Vegan Chocolate – a nod to our web development team’s expertise in the “dark arts” of coding.
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‘Data Nuts’: Tony’s Milk Chocolate with Hazelnut – representing our digital marketing team’s love of data and insights.
Why did we choose Tony’s Chocolonely®?
Corporate gifting that is innovative, fun and appreciated is one of our specialties. For us, the choice of Tony’s Chocolonely® was deliberate: we admire how they are leading the charge to eliminate slave labour from the chocolate supply chain and we respect their fair, sustainable values. We also LOVE their chocolate!
Tony’s Chocolonely® corporate personalisation service allowed us to design custom wrappers to their template which includes the necessary information on the back of bar. To complement their sustainable packaging, we opted for recyclable kraft boxes with single-colour printing and self-sealing closures, perfectly sized to fit UK large letter postal guidelines. We will of course be hand delivering some of these boxes to the lucky recipients – because who doesn’t love a personal touch?
Want to sample our ‘Creations’? Simply fill in our contact form with the message “I WANT CHOCOLATE!” And we’ll get in touch.
Looking for innovative, memorable corporate gifting ideas that reflect your brand’s values? Get in touch – we’d love to help!
Completed: December 2024
