Sas factfile

Patrick Gouldsbrough

The client:

Who are they? Surfers Against Sewage are an environmental charity who aim to protect the UK’s oceans, waves and beaches so that all can enjoy their benefits. While many of the people who are employed by SAS are volunteers, they are at the fore-front of the clear and clean water campaign in the UK. However, while SAS do their best to stay relevant, the emergence of similar campaigns and more pressing and urgent appeals and initiatives has reduced it down the list of most notable charities in recent times. On the other hand, it doesn’t struggle to maintain it’s position as a national charity and is one of the biggest groups in their field of charitable organisation categories.

When did they start? Starting in 1990 by a group of enthusiastic surf and beach lovers in St Agnes, Porthtowan, the initiative soon took off and turned from a local charity to a nation al charity. Through surfers around the UK and other community residents, SAS were able to expand relatively quickly through a lot of beach and environmental events.

The privatisation of water companies in 1989, coupled with a few legislations made about bathing after in the UK, gave SAS a real platform to build their charity and become a real catalyst for clean bathing water in the country.

Why did they start? Along with the constantly deteriorating situation of the UK’s oceans and beaches, SAS saw an opportunity for change when pieces of legislation were passed about bathing water in the UK. This, as well as the emergence of SAS and defiance of the EU bathing Water Directive and Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive, the movement was able to propel itself and bring about change, which shows that SAS emerged at the correct time with the correct arsenal and plan of tackling the country wide issue. Unlike many charities, who establish themselves after an issue or after the issue has got too bad already, SAS came in at the right time and solved the solution and carry on to do so, de to the problem not been fixed (it’s an on going solution which is why SAS extensively research and widen their reach and support to various parts of the UK)

What do they do?They aim to make a sizeable impact on the state of UK’s oceans and beaches through changes in public behaviour, government legislation and industry practice. The SAS must keep their challenge at optimum levels and not let their mission be in vein, for if they don’t fulfil or chase up one of these factors, they could fail in their mission and their work over the past 25 years could be for nothing. According to the SAS website, their main aims are to:

• Influences governments on key issues affecting oceans, beaches and recreational water users and policies needed to deliver a cleaner and safer marine environment.

• Creates volunteering opportunities for individuals and communities to be involved with activities to safeguard our seas, coastlines and beaches.

• Educates communities on the achievable, sustainable solutions, which can help protect our waves, oceans and beaches.

• Challenges industry to adopt better standards to protect our coastal environment.

• Promotes scientific, economic and health evidence to support calls for a cleaner and safer marine environment.

• Informs the general public about issues affecting UK waves, oceans and beaches, and those that use them. How are they funded?

Membership – Individuals who are backing the campaign can become members of the initiative which will entitle them to have their say in campaigns and make suggestions on how to move SAS along as a charity. However, it is more beneficial to SAS, due to the fact they get membership money which enables them to create more events, purchase man power to clean up beaches or maybe use the financial injection to upgrade their promotional campaign, which, in turn, will generate even more members for the company.

Sale of merchandise – A big financial generation for any company but when you are a charity, sale of merchandise is a monumental generator of this. Due to you not knowing when a source of income will be coming for the charity because of donation been inconsistent over time, they have to make and sell merchandise to see them through the inconsistent months where they don’t get many donations from the public.

Fundraising events and sponsorship – As well as sale of merchandise, this is a great way to generate funds for SAS. Due tot the fact that they have made this initiative about a hobby, surfing, they have enabled the charity to set up charity surf events across the country where they can generate money by charging for lessons, surfing schools, merchandising and sponsorship of surfers. Events also enable SAS to promote their brand and message and try and keep existing members happy, while trying to acquire additional individuals from these events, which will hopefully generate additional funds in the future, should the decide to pledge to this cause as well.

Individual and corporate donations – Like any other charity, donations are a great source of income and a great way to keep themselves financially stable and in this case, to keep them on a national circuit. Even though you think any donation is a good donation, this is sometimes not the case. As the SAS state on their website, they will ensure that sponsorship and donation efforts will be ethical and do not compromise their own position as a charity. In short, they filter the donations and make sure they don’t accept a donation from a company who hunt Whales or companies that are mass polluters on the world, which would compromise the SAS’s position as a conservation charity for the ocean.

The issues:

What issues your client campaign on?Apart from campaigning about the protection of beaches, oceans and waves in the UK, SAS campaign on a whole host of other things as well as this. The SAS have gone to parliament and got 55,000 signatures to try an bring abut change in relation to beaches in the UK, while they have also arranged clean-ups around the UK beaches through plenty of volunteers.

While campaigning, SAS must think about:

Safeguarding the welfare of children – Apart from the main focus of making sure the ocean is a safer place, SAS ensure that children in particular are safeguarded and safety of them is paramount to ensuring child safety in the UK. While you would think this is in relation to the ocean and keeping them safe in the ocean, it’s mainly about the protection of children and abuse of children in general and doesn’t really go into detail to make it about the ocean at all. Even though charities have a main agenda, they can still get involved in other topics if they feel strongly about this topic and feel it needs addressing further, while something like protecting children from abuse is important and needs campaigning. As well as doing it to raise awareness, SAS could be doing this to try and get charitable partnerships with other charities and in particular, children charities. While this sounds like it’s profitable to the charity and is not helping the child awareness campaign and initiative, the more charities that get involved means the increase in the amount of awareness that is raised to the consumer.

Trying to make minimal impact on the environment while campaigning – This can include simple things like car-sharing and travelling the least distance when organising transport to the events the SAS has set up. While energy needs to be used for many things and can help generate many products and promotional tools SAS provide, energy will be sourced from renewable sources where available and will attempt to cut down their carbon footprint in the next few years. While environmental charities use little power and energy, they always feel liker they can do more because how do you expect people to use as little power as possible if you’re still using it? As I briefly mentioned in Task 3, materials that cause the least amount of damage to the earth will be used for merchandise and promotional products, as well as the obvious thing you can do to ensure you are a greener company, recycle. What are some of the impacts they have managed to achieve?While they have managed to win many awards and trophies over their 25 year existence, the SAS have also managed to make a monumental difference on the oceans preservation and protection. While they helped to push many legislations, including a few just after they were established in 1990, SAS have been working towards getting a big enough following to create change and hopefully one day, take it to parliament to try and get politicians to take note of the problems they are facing. In 2013, that became a reality; a select number of SAS supporters and leaders took a petition of 55,000 names to UK parliament to see if they can bring about change and create new legislations preventing our ocean been destroyed by sewage and waste. While all this is great for an environmental impact, there are also a number of personal and company achievements that are more pressing and important. When SAS first started, it was a local initiative and had 10 members of the charity, now though, it has more than 55,000 petition signatures and many more followers, as they have made the step up to a national level of charity in previous years, with the company managing to grab charity status back in 2012. While they were a charity before this time, in 2012, they were given full charitable status which allowed them to be recognised as one of the UK charities who make a sizeable impact over the past few decades.

The issues:

What are they still hoping to achieve?Their main goal has always been to clean up the beaches, oceans and waves of the UK through volunteers, sponsors and events. However, during this time, they have moved into a national audience and become a national force in terms of charity category. Even though it doesn’t state on the website, they may be looking to expand into a more global demographic next because this is a great initiative and is a big problem around the world, not just the UK. On the other hand, they might have these charities in other countries but a link-up with these companies is not out of the question, this could even make it easier, due to the fact that there would then be different centres in different countries and the UK personnel aren’t working alone on this initiative, they have representative form various countries chipping in their ideas and events (it has the potential to be a global company, with the right promotional tools, message and events organised to bring in the correct demographics).

As a direct quote from the SAS website, their mission for the future is:

•To undertake and promote for the benefit of the public the conservation, protection, improvement and ecologically sustainable management of the marine environment including associated land, shoreline and structures

•To advance the education of the public in the conservation, protection, improvement and ecologically sustainable management of the marine environment including associated land, shoreline and structures.

These two aims are both to do with the public and are both important when thinking about promoting an issue, it must be direct applicable to the consumer and must be broken down into parts they will understand, there is no point adding technical lexis in when they won’t understand or take in any of it. Trying to educate the consumer helps to directly tackle the issue because that is who is dumping sewage and who is damaging the shorelines of the UK, they need to be told what to do to tackle the problem and try and also tackle the stigma behind not confronting someone in the wrong in terms of the environment.

Facts and figures:

• In 2006, SAS pushed through changes in the EU bathing water directive – this changed a few legislations and furthered the credibility of SAS and helped to allowing them to become a full charitable organisation, as well as becoming a national charity, instead of a local one which was their previous categorisation.

• 55,000 signatures on a petition calling for better recognition and protection of UK waves. They take it to parliament and are determined to bring about further changes in terms of legislation

• “Using an economic multiplier for tourism, none having been deduced for surfing, it can be suggested that the indirect economic impact of surfing may be as much as £3.96bn (£1.8bn X 2.2) and the overall impact as much as £4.95bn (£3.96bn x1.25)”

• “A plastic bottle may persist in the marine environment for more than 450 years if left on a beach”

• “37.4 percent of marine litter comes directly from the public! Clean up after yourself at the beach”

• “Sources of marine litter*: 40.4% from the public, 4.5% Sewage related Debris, 13.9% fishing litter, 0.7% fly tipping, 3.9% shipping, 0.2% medical waste, 36.3% non-sourced”

• “Over 100,000 marine mammals and over 1 million seabirds die every year from ingestion of and entanglement in marine litter”

*All these facts were found on the SAS website: http://www.sas.org.uk/

Facts and figures:

• In 2006, SAS pushed through changes in the EU bathing water directive – this changed a few legislations and furthered the credibility of SAS and helped to allowing them to become a full charitable organisation, as well as becoming a national charity, instead of a local one which was their previous categorisation.

• 55,000 signatures on a petition calling for better recognition and protection of UK waves. They take it to parliament and are determined to bring about further changes in terms of legislation

• “Using an economic multiplier for tourism, none having been deduced for surfing, it can be suggested that the indirect economic impact of surfing may be as much as £3.96bn (£1.8bn X 2.2) and the overall impact as much as £4.95bn (£3.96bn x1.25)”

• “A plastic bottle may persist in the marine environment for more than 450 years if left on a beach”

• “37.4 percent of marine litter comes directly from the public! Clean up after yourself at the beach”

• “Sources of marine litter*: 40.4% from the public, 4.5% Sewage related Debris, 13.9% fishing litter, 0.7% fly tipping, 3.9% shipping, 0.2% medical waste, 36.3% non-sourced”

• “Over 100,000 marine mammals and over 1 million seabirds die every year from ingestion of and entanglement in marine litter”

*All these facts were found on the SAS website: http://www.sas.org.uk/