Surfers Against Sewage

The Challenge

Our climate is changing for the worse at an unprecedented rate. According to the UN, a rise in sea levels, marine heatwaves, and an irreversible loss of marine biodiversity are some of the main issues threatening the health of our planet. Surfers Against Sewage aims to combat this and challenge change for a better tomorrow.

Founded in 1990, the marine conservation charity works closely with communities to protect beaches, oceans, and marine life in the UK and beyond. To continue their work and reach a broader audience to spread their message, the charity needed a modern digital platform that reflected their bold and fearless approach to tackling climate change.

The Brief

As a unique campaigning organisation with a reputation for achieving results, the charity wanted a new website that better highlighted its actions across the UK and operated as a key tool in recruiting the next generation of ocean activists.

Building on the success of their plastic-free schools and communities programmes, the new website needed to represent the organisation as one that achieves results challenges businesses and governments and is a leading voice in the environmental protection space.

Moreover, as a charity with an array of incredible imagery ranging from ocean activism to surfing campaigners, the website needed to spotlight Surfers Against Sewage’s photographic excellence as a tool for attracting new supporters.

The Process

To increase awareness, influence and engagement, a reimagined website was needed to cement the brand’s values and content. Throughout our discovery phase, we continually referred back to what had made the charity so successful up until now, developing these themes and translating them into assets that could be utilised on the website to increase awareness, donations and member engagement.

A key part of this involved interviewing representatives of the charity’s key audiences to understand their thoughts and feelings towards the existing site and how the new one could increase their engagement with the charity online. 

Central to creating a website that is viewed as the ‘go-to’ resource for those who are passionate about protecting the UK’s blue spaces was fostering a community on the website. User research informed our decision to focus on how members and donors could become better connected with activism and campaigning in their local area.

One feature of this was creating specific regional landing pages featuring editable maps that show the locations of local beach cleans as well as area representatives. In addition to this, the website acts as a host for the charity’s sewage pollution tool which provides updates and alerts as to the status of popular areas of coastline which was recently featured on BBC News.

The Solution

The ultimate goal of Surfers Against Sewage is to undertake and promote the conservation of marine life and the new website supports the charity to continue in this endeavour through a number of avenues.

A repurposed information architecture ensures that each of Surfers Against Sewage’s core focuses is afforded the necessary space to highlight issues, inspire prospective members and prompt them to join the mission of ocean activism. The reimaged design also plays on the themes of waves and through subtle brush-stroke features which divide components, users are constantly reminded of what they can help to protect by supporting the charity.

With sewage and water quality now consistently in the public and political discourse, we’re proud to have been a part of the journey in helping to advance the mission of Surfers Against Sewage in helping to protect our oceans.

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