About Ocular
Ocular is a Wellington-based digital agency specializing in video, creative design, websites, and branding. Led by Director Steve O'Rourke, Ocular works with a wide range of clients, including government bodies, corporate organisations, non-profits, and NGOs across New Zealand and internationally.
As a key player in the supply chain for these sectors, Ocular is increasingly being asked by clients, especially government panels, to report on their carbon footprint and demonstrate environmental responsibility.
Challenges measuring as a small business
As a small agency, Ocular faced significant challenges in understanding and reporting their environmental impact. Steve O'Rourke acknowledged.
”As a smallish company, it's really hard to work out what your carbon overhead is or what your impact is on the environment. If I was to go and try and assess my carbon impact, it's just not going to happen. Even with the best will in the world, I don't have the expertise, and I'm not going to consider all the inputs, because I don't know what they all are. If I was going to pay an organisation to assess our impact, it would cost a lot of money.”
CarbonInvoice as the solution
To address this challenge, Ocular turned to CarbonInvoice, and since January 2023 it has provided the agency with a practical, cost-effective way to track and manage its environmental impact. “CarbonInvoice really meets our challenge of how do we take care as good kaitiaki [guardian] of the environment without all the effort of figuring out every single input,” said Steve.
By integrating CarbonInvoice with Ocular’s accounting software, Xero, in minutes the solution became a seamless part of their operations. "It’s a plug-and-play solution to our problem,” Steve explained. The simplicity and automation of CarbonInvoice allowed Ocular to continually measure and mitigate their carbon footprint without needing to allocate significant resources.
This has seen Ocular effortlessly measure and mitigate their carbon footprint, meet client expectations, and demonstrate their environmental responsibility. This not only strengthens their position in tenders and client relationships but also gives the team a sense of fulfilment as they contribute to the future of New Zealand’s environment.
Since February 2023 Ocular has partnered with CarbonInvoice to measure their carbon footprint and plant native trees in Wellington, New Zealand where they are based. Ocular has funded over 200 trees - check out their tree count here: https://www.carboninvoice.com/profile/ocular
How Ocular is benefiting
Using CarbonInvoice has not only allowed Ocular to meet the environmental reporting requirements of their clients but has also given them peace of mind that they are contributing to improving New Zealand’s environment. “We’re lucky that we’ve got a number that is our carbon offset, and that we’re actually having an input into improving New Zealand’s environment,” Steve said.
One of the most rewarding aspects of this partnership has been Ocular’s direct contribution to native tree planting projects across the country. Steve shared, “I’ve been lucky enough to go out and see the trees going in the ground, and it’s a really amazing feeling to know that we and our customers have contributed towards future generations of forests across our country.”
As Steve concluded, “I really do recommend CarbonInvoice to anyone in the agency world who’s thinking about a way to improve their impact.”
