The Independent, Savings United and Earthmark win Social Impact Award

The Independent, Savings United and Earthmark have won the Social Impact Awards at the Rakuten Golden Links Awards 2024, held yesterday in London.

The event spotlights outstanding performance across the European affiliate industry and saw a record number of entries this year. 

The Social Impact Award celebrates the innovative joint initiative from The Independent, Savings United and Earthmark, which launched in February 2023, and gives environmental scores  to brands, allowing consumers to make conscious, informed decisions about their purchases. 

The rating system appears as ‘Earthmarks’, environmental scores highlighting brands that are taking steps to combat the climate crisis. In addition, The Independent’s vouchers portal highlights sustainable product ranges to consumers in the form of offers, encouraging people to make more climate-friendly choices.

The Independent’s Executive Editor Philippa Jenkins comments: “It’s really rewarding to get this recognition, but even more so to be giving practical, clear ways for consumers to make decisions which help rather than damage our world. The climate crisis has been of critical importance to The Independent since we launched, and our aim is to make sustainability as easy and transparent as possible. We give big thanks to the judges for acknowledging the initiative’s vision and impact.”

Dan Cohen, Group Commercial Director at Savings United, remarks: “We’re incredibly honoured to have received this award. When we conceived of this idea together, we were excited to have an innovative approach to showing consumers sustainability information regarding their purchases and it’s awesome to see this validated by the judges and Rakuten!”

Jack Linnett, co-founder and CEO at Earthmark, says: “A big driver for us at Earthmark is to bridge the gap between intent and action; what people say vs what people do. Most people want to tackle the climate crisis but it’s often made too confusing or hard to do so. We’re excited to see the tide turning and proving that conscious consumerism is possible, at scale and with a solid business case, with Savings United and The Independent. Thank you Rakuten!”