Ocean Outdoor enters third year of Pinwheel partnership to build on environmental impacts

The impact of funds generated by Ocean Outdoor’s environmental partnership with UK advertising agencies and Pinwheel is being felt across the globe, paying for the protection of natural habitats, marine wildlife and coral ecosystems, plastic waste removal and scientific carbon capture research. 

In just 24 months, direct investment has reached 16 countries on three continents. So far: 

• More than 43,000 kilograms of plastic waste has been recovered and recycled with funds being distributed to verified waste collectors in 12 locations, from India to Tanzania; 

• Working with SEE Turtles, more than 195,000 turtle hatchlings have been protected, working with six local projects in five countries. Healthy oceans need sea turtles which are a keystone species; 

• Coralive has allocated funds to small scale coral farming projects in Kenya and Madagascar, rescuing depleted colonies and deploying coral nursery infrastructure;  

• Hourglass Climate is conducting ecological surveys to investigate the power of ocean alkalinity to remove carbon from the atmosphere, and the effect that process has on ecological recovery on a project site in North Carolina. 

All four projects have been carefully vetted by the sustainability platform Pinwheel and were selected in a vote which invited clients and agencies to decide which of the projects to put a portion of their advertising spend towards.  

Ocean Outdoor UK CEO Nick Shaw said: “Pinwheel allows our agency partners to directly contribute to verified frontline environmental programmes. The results are measurable and meaningful, backed by the environmental scientists we work with who have provided clear, firsthand accounts about how the money is being used. It’s a tough market, and funding remains hard to come by, but I hope our in-depth impact report will encourage more agency partners to come on board with us in 2026.”. 

Gavin Sheppard, CEO, Pinwheel, said: “Ocean Outdoor’s commitment to climate and nature action is an exemplar of focused, thoughtful work that achieves real world results. Now in their third year of work with Pinwheel, they have shown long term support for four exceptional projects, providing long term security that help achieve exponential gains. Ocean are also involving agency partners in the allocation of funding, driving awareness and engagement of this critical activity.” 

Brad Nahill, President of SEE Turtles, said: “Funding from Ocean Outdoor and their clients through Pinwheel’s platform has been critical in our efforts to support important turtle nesting beaches. This support will help keep community organisations working to protect sea turtles in five countries including Venezuela, Mexico, Panama Ghana and Costa Rica.”    

Under Ocean’s broader sustainability strategy, the business also commits two per cent of its reported UK revenue in advertising space to charities, non-profits and organisations working to reverse climate change and repair the planet. Six charities a year benefit from the Drops in the Ocean programme.