Innovation

The biggest impact they can create as a small company is to practice sustainable procurement. That is how they began their sustainability journey when a client introduced EcoVadis status as a part of doing business. To carry that practice forward, XCH published a state-of-the-art Vendor Code of Conduct In 2022, based on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The agency prioritized seven SDGs in areas where they felt they could make the most impact—Good Health and Well-being, Quality Education, Gender Equality, Decent Work and Economic Growth, Reduced Inequality, Responsible Consumption and Production, and Partnerships to achieve the Goal.

The conduct code is a condition for starting and maintaining a business relationship with XCH calling upon suppliers to meet their standards for fair trade, financials and accounting practices, physical and emotional safety, freely chosen employment, environmental laws and regulations, and sourcing and materials. Their vision is to empower their suppliers to embody their values through the XCH Code of Conduct. This is how they influence others to employ a business model that supports ethical business practices, is socially responsible, and protects the environment.

Inspiration

CEO Sunny White puts it simply, "The value of our values is in our sustainable actions." XCH offset their carbon footprint by 421% with donations their team target to support renewable energy and reforestation via Climate Hero and TheCarbonFund.org. They added practitioners in yoga, meditation, mindfulness, and emotional intelligence coaching to our wellness initiative, named a Sustainability Director, and published a state-of-the-art Vendor Code of Ethics. In October 2021, XCH’s assessment earned an EcoVadis gold medal with a 10-point jump in its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) score, ranking in the top 1% among advertising firms. XCH inspires their industry peers through the Diversity Alliance 4 Science (DA4S), sharing how we use our business as a force for good that strengthens as we grow. The agency boosted its sustainable infrastructure by developing an onboarding system, implementing an HRIS system, adopting a lean operating system, and rolling out a robust employee engagement program to drive accountability to the individual level.

To implement and certify green initiatives and sustainable business practices, XCH joined the Green Business Bureau (GBB). “Xavier Creative House (XCH) is fueling our corporate social responsibility efforts with the same creativity and strategy we employ to grow our client brands as their healthcare marketing agency. We began our sustainability journey with awareness and promotion followed by systematic upgrading of our policies, procedures, and systems to support the integration of the green culture into our business model. XCH is passionate about creating a sustainable future and believes every person can make a difference.” said Jennifer Blossom Beddingfield, Director HR & Sustainability. XCH continuously reviews and integrates their programming, policies, and practices in recruiting, hiring, onboarding, and ongoing training that is accessible and representative of their diverse employee base. Initially tasked by a client to apply for EcoVadis status and reassess every three years, XCH has reapplied annually, finally achieving EcoVadis Platinum status.

Overall impact

From the start, XCH was gutsy, employing remote workers eight years before the new normal and playing in a space where mammoth agencies of record (AOR) consumed the majority of the healthcare marketing budget. Rather than compete head-on, they carved out a niche as a nimble agency that gets projects over the finish line while offering an intimate client experience. Customers branded their approach as the XFactor, calling them when it mattered most to “Xavierfy" a deliverable. They ask themselves, “What more can we do to shape the future of healthcare marketing to be socially responsible, transparent, and accountable?” They knew it was time to go big when suddenly, their seamless virtual platform was the pivot every client needed to make.

Fearlessly doubling up on staff, they digitized their pharma clients' communications for healthcare providers (HCPs), patients, and caregivers and helped design a communication platform for clinical educators to train nurses on a digital tool to support cancer patients remotely. XCH became known to be ahead of the trend, and when asked by J&J to participate in a sustainability assessment, they jumped in, spending months examining how to articulate the behaviors that their small team was doing organically. It was enough to get them a Silver Medal EcoVadis Status in 2020 and a three-year window to put infrastructure in place to make their natural tendencies repeatable, accessible, and applicable to their diverse teams from around the world.

Business benefit

XCH is flourishing, closing two new contracts this year, bringing its total MSAs to seven with a 56% increase in revenue, and making the lists for Philly 100 and Soaring 76 fastest growing companies as well as PBJ’s Healthiest Employer. The agency won a FiercePharma Consumer Marketing award, MM+M named it a 2022 Agency to Watch and Best Places to Work, and PM360 selected their Sr. Account Supervisor as an Elite 100 Leader of the Future. XCH has a “think-big mentality,” operating like a premier organization. Their CEO, a Titan 100, established the annual XFactor award with a $10,000 prize for the employee voted most mighty by their peers and disbursed a $2000 inflation bonus when the cost-of-living spiked in early summer. The XCH sustainability journey is growing every year, just as fast as their company. Applicants flock to their website to get in on the ground floor of a company that rivals the green culture of large organizations, to whom they say, “If we can do it, so can you.”

Social and environmental benefit

When XCH began its sustainability journey, they had eight employees and a grassroots effort to address the agency's impact on the environment, ethics, people, and sustainable procurement. As a virtual company with under 50 employees, they could have assumed that their carbon footprint was too minimal to measure. Just the opposite, they stand as a role model for other micro-sized businesses by installing state-of-the-art systems to measure and reduce their carbon footprint and aggressively pursuing three sustainability certifications.

XCH launched the Climate Hero survey to build awareness of what constitutes waste, challenge employees to reduce that impact, and provide XCH with an actual measurement to apply to their offset. XCH offset their carbon footprint by 421% with donations of their team target to support renewable energy and reforestation via Climate Hero and TheCarbonFund.org. Based on individual responses, team members received a summary along with recommendations and tactics to become more sustainable and reduce waste. Small steps add up with two of their favorite suggestions for individual environment-friendly habits—looking for the RSPO label to use only Certified Sustainable Palm Oil and avoiding food waste or reducing the average 40% of food waste by half. For all hands, the agency added to the travel policy by having employees request a low emission ride when available when utilizing rideshare such as Uber, Lyft, or taxis. Internally, they conserve energy with continuous monitoring of PCs and other equipment. This initiative is very visible to their employees, who participate in a quarterly energy audit and promptly upgrade inefficient hardware/software.

Interviews

Sunny White, CEO

Jennifer Beddingfield, Director of HR & Sustainability