Earning the DPP Committed to Sustainability Badge

As consumer consciousness about environmental issues and sustainable practices has grown, so has the demand for eco-friendly and socially responsible services. This chimes well with our foundational values and spirit to constantly deliver excellence and innovate in the media and broadcasting space.

We recently participated in the DPP Committed to Sustainability survey to formalize this. Our efforts were recognized, and we were awarded a badge symbolizing our dedication to sustainable practices while striving for excellence. We take pride in this milestone as a visible reminder of our past work and the future work we plan in a sustainable direction.

What is the DPP Committed to Sustainability program?

The DPP Committed to Sustainability program is an industry-leading scheme. It celebrates and promotes good practices in environmental sustainability across the media industry. We participated in their survey upon assessing which DPP awarded us the badge. This marks an excellent starting point for measuring our ESG program's progress, identifying tangible areas for improvement, and staying ahead of the innovation curve. 

An overview of Cleeng’s sustainability journey: What drives us

Sustainability is embedded firmly in our foundational corporate values and code of conduct. We value this greatly because it helps us stay ethical and supports our quest for excellence. As a founding member, I’m entrusted with coordinating these efforts and enforcing these values organization-wide.

Pursuing this path has become a unique differentiator in standing out, as large broadcasters now include sustainability requirements in their RFPs. At the same time, it allows us to pursue our motto of delivering the best in every respect and nurturing a solid talent pool. After all, sustainability and environmental impact are catalysts for improving employee well-being and productivity. They ensure people are motivated and foster the organization's highest standards of innovation and creativity. 

Our sustainability efforts are visible in our professional work ethic and equality. Some areas it is apparent include:

• Diversity of our workforce: Diversity isn't just a checkbox for us but forms the baseline of our culture and an enabler in building a diverse talent pool. It gives us access to broader talent choices and helps us bring varied perspectives together. As a result, our talent diversity drives open-mindedness, innovation, and creative problem-solving approaches organization-wide. This feeds into our motto of harboring workplace excellence and improving our product every single day.
  
  The Cleeng team comprises a balance of men and women from various backgrounds, who are all compensated fairly, irrespective of gender. This mix includes people from 24+ nationalities and strongly drives creativity, innovation, and collaboration. We've been growing this working force to sustain our growth and continue expansion. 
  
  
• Remote-first, digital approach: We prioritize a remote-first working style, which reduces our carbon footprint by minimizing commuting and office energy use. Our lean SaaS operations embrace a paperless approach and utilize virtual collaboration tools, contributing to optimizing resource utilization and waste reduction. This flexibility helps the environment and also helps us gather the interest of and recruit the best people not limited by locational constraints. They can better manage their work and personal lives with remote operations, increase well-being, and reduce stress. This ensures people are motivated, operate at peak productivity, and ensure we drive excellence.
  
  
  
• Reliance on eco-friendly technologies: The technological framework at Cleeng relies on eco-friendly partners. We consciously choose to work with ethical partners because of the positive impact this creates on the planet. We’ve also noticed how much value the upcoming generations place on this notion, which impacts our talent acquisition. Moreover, this also aligns with our commitment to being the best provider in our category for our clients, whose preferences are now increasingly skewed towards responsible organizations.
  
  
  Efforts in this direction include reliance on AWS’s eco-friendly public cloud solutions, collaboration with ESG-focused companies like Accedo, and exploring joint programs for enhanced product development. Check out my conversation with Accedo about Sustainability: 
•  

• Clean-code approach: Our CTO has initiated a dedicated program called SlimFast. This program is designed to review and eliminate redundant lines of code. This ensures that our software and infrastructure maintain optimal efficiency and remain as lean as possible. The result is a fast, cost-effective, easy-to-maintain system that works brilliantly for our clients.
  

Moving forward, we’ve also identified some actionable areas for improvement and refined our sustainability efforts more precisely.

Cleeng’s sustainability goals and objectives: Focus areas in 2024

• Employee environmental awareness and training:

We’re working to ensure high environmental awareness across the organization. In that vein, we’ll provide our employees with comprehensive sustainability training. This will cover the basics of environmental sustainability, including sustainable development, the different types of natural resources, and the impact of human activities on the environment. This initiative has been integrated into our onboarding process and ongoing professional development. It’s done to ensure our remote team is well-informed and actively engaged in practices that align with our sustainability goals. 

• Comprehensive environmental data measurement

While we’re using the Customer Carbon Footprint Tool in AWS to assess our carbon emissions, we want to expand our mapping of environmental impact more holistically. So, we’ve begun discussions with leading organizations supporting such data measurement. We’re in the process of understanding and evaluating the various potential opportunities for more in-depth collaboration.

• Transition to renewable energy sources

At our primary location - the company headquarters - we've started installing solar panels to optimize energy usage. 

Moving forward, we’ll regularly review and refine these strategies to shape our sustainability efforts even more precisely. After all, these efforts form a piece of the larger picture of driving excellence and innovation in the D2C streaming arena. 

Want to explore how you can apply our solutions to drive D2C streaming excellence?