I really enjoyed our time at Alice PR and hearing about their advocacy work for clients. Niamh Breathnach, Maisie Lynch, and Emma Walsh from Alice PR were great presenters, and I learned a lot! 

One thing I learned was Alice PR’s commitment to its community. The agency held a bootcamp for aspiring activists called Alice Academy for Activists. Over the course of three days, 21 activists learned about media relations, social media, fundraising, and more. The camp was completely free for participants and made Alice PR a leader in activism and advocacy. 

Another thing I learned about was Alice Asks, a series of guest speaker events for clients and friends to further their learning. Some previous topics include ethics, AI, and women in leadership. It is incredible way for the agency to bring clients up-to-speed on current topics and trends. 

The third thing I learned was the importance of relationships with journalists. Alice PR was tasked with earning media coverage for a campaign with Ruhama and the Gaelic Athletic Association. Maisie had a previous relationship with a few journalists she pitched to, and she earned a good amount of coverage from just those journalists she knew.  

Understanding your audience was interesting to me. In the campaign above, the target audience was men ages 18-35, and Maisie does not fall into that demographic. In our campaign exercise, my group created a campaign for men in their 30s and 40s. We relied heavily on research about our audience to figure out what strategies would work best.  

I also found it interesting that Maisie had to explain the importance of the Game Changers campaign to journalists with a sports beat because it was not an issue they covered directly. Maisie did a great job explaining how she pitched the campaign to sports journalists.  

I still have questions about measuring the long-term results of a campaign and how audience sentiment changes.

The Allied Irish Bank (AIB) and Goodbody Clearstream meeting on sustainability was incredibly insightful! Paul, Katie, and John were so knowledgeable and provided both information and metrics.  

Paul taught us that it is important to meet your customer and bring them with you on your sustainability journey. Instead of making sustainable changes to your business and overwhelming customers, a business should help their customer make similar changes. For example, AIB helps landlords make their buildings sustainable instead of deciding not to work with them because they are not sustainable.  

Katie shared that the EU CRSD is impacted by American economics and politics. Since the United States is such a competitive country, the EU changed which businesses must report their sustainability initiatives to remain competitive as well. 

John closed the meeting with remarks about AIB’s sustainability initiatives. AIB practices not only environmental sustainability, but also social sustainability to make society a better place. 

I found it interesting that there are so many different ways to report CSR and sustainability as a business. There are multiple certifications, accreditations, and rankings a business can use to measure CSR and sustainability. I also found it interesting that there are so many aspects of a business that can fall under scope 3 carbon emissions. 

My question is how do companies prioritize scope 3 emissions? There is no way to tackle every single thing that falls under scope 3, so I wonder how companies prioritize which ones to work on.