International Women’s Day 2025 is about more than just conversation; it’s about accelerating action to create lasting change. For 75Media, this means not only fostering gender diversity but also making real, measurable strides in sustainability.
We spoke with Katy, Brand Communications and ESG Director, about how she’s shaping the company’s wider impact and why businesses need to take action rather than simply set goals.
Can you share a bit about your journey to becoming 75Media’s Brand Communications and ESG Director? What have been the key moments in your career?
My early days were rooted in press office life: working every day with journalists, attending press calls and being in a reactive environment was an incredibly formative way of kickstarting my career in communications. As a PR consultant, in more recent years, I had the opportunity to work with a broad range of consumer brands and it was this chapter that enabled me to really understand the power of storytelling: finding ways to raise an organisation’s profile through its people, their views and their personalities. These are always compelling ways for brands to truly connect with audiences as they build trust and great reputations.
How has 75Media supported and empowered women in leadership, and what more can be done across the industry?
As part of our ESG strategy, we are actively looking to partner with an organisation to create work experience or apprentice positions for young women to help improve gender diversity and inclusivity. We hope that our ambitions in this area will go some way to widening the scope of opportunity for women in the advertising industry.
Are there any female mentors or role models who have inspired your leadership style?
I’ve been incredibly lucky to work with some tremendous women throughout my career, from female bosses who took the time to get to know my strengths and weaknesses, patiently providing guidance in my early 20s, to women I’ve worked alongside and see in action: building immense careers while juggling families or caring roles outside of work. A woman’s capabilities and capacity knows no bounds when she puts her mind to it!
The theme for International Women’s Day 2025 is ‘Accelerate Action.’ What does ‘Accelerate Action’ mean to 75Media in the context of ESG, and why is it a key focus for 2025?
Action is everything to us. We simply won’t put our name to anything we can’t commit to or deliver on. Our ESG strategy has been developed to echo this – it’s ambitious but realistic and every target we’ve set ourselves will make a tangible difference to people and planet. Creating dashboards that show our ESG progress at every step, is just one way we’re holding ourselves accountable.
75Media has made strong commitments to environmental sustainability. What are the next big steps to further reduce our carbon footprint?
We have just completed our scopes 1 & 2 carbon accounting: a first step in understanding our greenhouse gas emissions associated with our offices and billboards. This year, we will undertake scope 3 calculations to understand our entire operational outputs and those of our suppliers’ and our supply chain. Results from this will help us edge closer towards our net zero target.
Other carbon reduction areas we’re making strides in include:
- Using 100% certified renewable energy to power our digital billboards
- Via our YDMT partnership, we’ve planted 1,050 trees which has helped us capture approximately 175 tonnes of carbon of the next 50 years
- Restoring 0.85 hectares of wildflower meadow, increasing biodiversity
How do partnerships like the one with Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust (YDMT) contribute to accelerating our environmental action?
Our partnership with the Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust (YDMT) – which is now in its fourth year – plays a huge role in helping us deliver our ESG strategy.
In the beginning, we were just a small Yorkshire company that wanted to ‘give back’ to the landscape we call home but now, in 2025, we regard our partnership with YDMT as a cornerstone of our ESG strategy: the projects we support through donations and the volunteer work we take part in as a team, all help us to meet the targets we’ve set ourselves in the short, medium and long-term.
Back in 2021, we didn’t really know what ESG was, and we certainly didn’t know how to set and meet tangible carbon reduction goals, but the team at YDMT has been incredibly supportive – and knowledgeable – in helping us understand what we can do as a company, and as a team, to create long-lasting positive impact. We remain committed to and excited about building on this momentum to help deliver even more amazing nature recovery projects.
What challenges do businesses typically face when trying to accelerate ESG action, and how is 75Media overcoming these?
Beginning an ESG journey can be really overwhelming. If it’s not a subject matter you’re already familiar with, it’s difficult to know where to start – understanding goal setting, exploring a realistic plan that works for your business, demystifying sustainability terminology and knowing what you can or need to change about your business, can all feel daunting.
At 75Media, we brought in sustainability experts from TBL Services who guided us through the process and helped us align our strategy with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals: a framework that helps us tackle global challenges including poverty, inequality and climate change.
We now have a plan – with realistic but ambitious targets – that will hold us accountable and help us deliver a positive impact by 2030 and be carbon net zero by 2040.
If there’s one key message you’d like people to take away from 75Media’s ESG journey, what would it be?
Focus on projects that you know you can make a tangible, positive impact on. It’s tempting to set big goals and feel driven to overhaul your whole business to reach them but it’s important to remain committed to your overall business objectives too.
Start small and build up your ambitions over time. If you can keep it real, you’ll get tangible results a lot sooner and that in itself will be a big motivator to do more!
Also, biodiversity projects are your ESG superpower! They are often very affordable to deliver and, if you have a good nature recovery partner – like we do in YDMT – they can help identify habitats that need the most support and in a matter of months, you can witness new plant and wildlife in woodlands, meadows and even urban areas which all do wonderful things for carbon reduction.
As Katy emphasises, real progress in ESG and gender diversity doesn’t require an overnight transformation, it comes from consistent, tangible steps that build over time. Our work in sustainability, inclusion, and corporate responsibility showcases how a clear plan and long-term commitment can lead to meaningful impact. This International Women’s Day, the message is clear: The time for action is now.
