NEW STANDARD.S third year in review

MONIKA KANOKOVA

06.10.2023

In the last paragraph of our second-year review blog post, we mentioned our first full-time employee, Juliane, and announced the return of Nika, who was coming back from her parental leave. Much has happened since. Now, we’re no longer just three people. Our core team has grown to six people, and we have four additional employees who work on local impact projects.

Growing our (local) impact

Since the start of NEW STANDARD.S, reducing the amount of trash has been one of our main goals. We’re happy to announce that, since we started working on the Schön wie wir campaign in 2021, when 10.053 cubic meters were illegally dumped in Neukölln, the amount was reduced to “only” 8.904 cubic meters in 2022. With this news, we should also mention that we no longer just support the project as a contractor for communications but that we’ve become the project lead and are now working on repositioning the whole initiative strategically.

One major solution to the local trash problem is reusable dishes. In 2022, we worked on a project for the BA Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg that supported the local government in advising local businesses on how to introduce reusable dishes into their workflows and organized a hyper-local OOH campaign to raise awareness for the subject. In 2023, we started working with ProjectTogether, WWF, and the Mehrwegallianz to create a national campaign to raise awareness of the topic.

While we focus on growing our local impact by working with clients such as BA Neukölln or DEGEWO, we have also begun expanding our B2B consulting services.

Our fight against greenwashing

We’re grateful and beyond excited that, in March 2023, the European Commission proposed a Directive on Green Claims to stop companies from confusing people. With the new regulations, a growing number of agencies reached out to us requesting our services to act as a “greenwashing police.” We now join potential client meetings and support their teams in reviewing their campaigns, copy, etc. to ensure what they produce isn’t greenwashing.

Sophie, our sustainability consultant, is our CSRD expert working with our clients on getting them CSRD-ready for the upcoming reporting period. If you’d like to read some of the sustainability and impact reports we’ve conducted, you can read the Brammibal’s Donuts report in English or the FREITAG report in English or German, and of course our finally published 2022 impact report, which we’re incredibly proud of.

Speaking up

As a business that was founded amidst a global pandemic, there were hardly any in-person events during our first two years. However, we’ve recently been getting back to speaking on stage. Nika spoke at the Handelsblatt Live ESG Conference in Düsseldorf. Max hosted an in-person workshop at the DDC Salon to explain to designers how to use design to solve problems in the public interest. A couple of weeks ago, they also spoke at We Create Meaning about how every job is a sustainability job now. If you’d like to invite Max and Nika as speakers, they’re available for in-person events again.

Between growing and growing up

In March of this year, we turned our GbR into a GmbH. We kicked off the process back in November of 2022; however, figuring out the right constellation and drafting a contract that enables NEW STANDARD.S to become a B Corp while also catering to the needs of our founders challenged us.

As already mentioned, our team grew. We’ve welcomed a sustainability manager, two new designers (of which one is our former intern, so not so new after all), two Kiezhausmeister for the Bezirk Neukölln, and a project lead for a sustainability project at Gropiusstadt. Probably the most fun thing about having a bigger team is that we get to do really fun activities on our team days. This past year, we had a tarot card session with Juan and went to the theater to see the mindblowing ballet Half Life by Sharon Eyal.

What’s next?

If you’re a freelancer and you’d like to work with us, we’re launching a new format to get to know local freelancers that we can collaborate with. You can sign up for our free freelancer lunch and show and tell us more about your work in person.

As for hiring, we’re currently looking for a project manager and an office manager and will also likely look for a German native-level person to do concept and copywriting.

And as for projects, as always, we’re open to working on campaigns and communications for sustainable brands and companies and for consulting/advisory projects for companies that would like to become more sustainable. Sound interesting? Email start@newstandard.studio to get to know us.

“I’m absolutely impressed by the sheer amount and scope of work we’ve been able to create in our third year – and we learn with each and every one, about how we work together as a team but also how we tackle this variety of challenges. Our holistic approach pays off and is very valued by clients. Also, I’m happy that our team is very open to uncertainty, to doing things for the first time. Because as much as the communication industry, the economy as a whole, and even the world is currently changing, there’s unchartered territory ahead.”

MAX

“My highlight is the fact that knowledge and life-long learning is highly valued at NEW STANDARD.S. As employees, we get educational budgets every year. Max and Nika also allowed me to attend two conferences this summer, and in two months, Juliane and I will learn about nonviolent communication in a three-day seminar. I think that learning shouldn’t stop after graduation, and I’m grateful that Max and Nika share my opinion.”

SOPHIE

“I couldn’t be happier to return to NEW STANDARD.S for my first full-time position. The mutual trust and empowering atmosphere Nika and Max are creating made me grow so much in the first place – and hopefully even further in this new chapter. I’m more than ready to tackle the challenges ahead of us with the team! And excited about diving into all those areas and questions becoming more important than ever. Despite the uncertainty that’s surrounding us, there is a lot to do and I’m sure it is most important to just get started.”

SVENJA

“At NEW STANDARD.S, I learned that even with little money and time, the biggest projects can be accomplished – as long as we have fun together, anything is possible.”

JULIANE

“Working at NEW STANDARD.S is especially inspiring because everybody here and our clients are determined to deliver work that has a truly positive impact. As challenging as this might be sometimes, we never stop learning and in the end, teamwork makes the dream work. In the short time I have been here, I can already look back on so many projects we have worked on that make me happy and proud, and I’m really looking forward to everything that’s still ahead of us.”

JULIEN

“As individuals, we might ask ourselves: “Who am I to have an actual impact in this world?” Three years ago, it was just Max and I – two individuals – who decided to try to shift things toward a new normal. A global pandemic gave us the necessary push to dream bigger. Within these three years, we’ve started working with companies, governments, NGOs but also incredible individuals who all believe a different order in society is possible. This growth gives me the confidence that while we sometimes might feel small, when we organize to collaborate we can achieve what we set out to do – whether it’s the abandonment of plastic packaging or linear production lines.”

MONIKA