The 12 days of Mindfully Wired: 2024
2024 has been a year of growing, and growing up for Mindfully Wired.
We kicked off the year with the appointment of Mindfully Wired’s first Managing Director, Kathryn Martino. Bringing 25 years’ global communications agency experience and with deep expertise in purpose-led behaviour change campaigning and managing high performing teams, Kath has been leading the charge in restructuring our business to set us – and our clients – up to create even more meaningful impact in 2025 and beyond.
Watch this space for the relaunch of Mindfully Wired early in 2025. Think new brand, new website, new vision and new mission, underpinned with the same passion, the same creativity and the same subject matter expertise that have become our hallmark over the last decade.
As the year draws to a close, we are excited for what the New Year will bring and we’re incredibly proud of the positive impact our work has had on people and planet in 2024.
We’d like to acknowledge that we couldn’t do what we do without all of YOU, our amazing colleagues and clients. Thank you for another year of inspirational work and learning. Below we’ve highlighted some of our top campaigns of the year.
Global guardians of the oceans
Global visionaries – the Blue Carbon Action Partnership and the Global Dialogue on Seafood Traceability – have been busy working with governments and growing new partnerships to deliver better outcomes for our oceans the world over. Our Campaign & Advocacy and Creative Services teams have supported these two projects with thought-leadership and beautiful resources.
All things Offshore Wind
Our year was bookended by Offshore Wind projects working with partners to scale up electricity generation without sacrificing marine ecosystems. Starting with chairing of a workshop with Defra looking at the process of Environmental Impact Assessments in Marine Protected Areas, we bridged the needs of diverse stakeholders to keep future regulation robust and proportionate. Our year ended with the ECOWind programme’s Annual Impact Meeting, and excitingly this edition added the ECOFlow programme as co-host, to include floating offshore wind infrastructure.
Guess Who?
Our Science & Policy team produced two guides to help UK fishermen quickly identify species they might meet at sea – from gannets to quahogs to angel sharks. The Project UK Guide shares handy info about regulations and the Clean Catch Wildlife ID Guide points out the often subtle differences between species, so you’ll never mix up your flapper skate and common blue skate again! Not content with just two, we’re currently developing more guides so watch this space…
Hand-in-hand with the industry
From championing safety at sea with the latest Home & Dry campaign, to driving innovation and empowering fishermen to shape the future of fisheries, we work to foster new connections and support the UK industry. We’ve shared Fisheries Innovation & Sustainability’s progress on AI bycatch reduction tech and net-zero vessel designs, and promoted Fishing into the Future’s three-day F-REP workshops uniting fishermen, policymakers, and scientists to learn how to co-manage fisheries effectively.
Making waves for sustainable seafood
It has been a bumper year for the North Atlantic Pelagic Advocacy Group (NAPA), championing the unified voice of the marketplace for sustainable seafood. Following the extension of two of its innovative Fishery Improvement Projects, we’re proud to have re-energised NAPA with a new look, new action plan and a new set of campaigns this year. NAPA’s evidence-led and collaborative approach is advocating for sustainable fisheries management in the North Atlantic.
Old friends, new frontiers
Some of our longest-running partnerships have seen new energy and reach in 2024. With the continued support of The Fishmongers’ Company’s Fisheries Charitable Trust, we’ve been at the heart of Westminster, bringing together a new group of MPs for the APPG on Fisheries following the General Election. Meanwhile, fishermen collaborating with Clean Catch shared their knowledge about ingredients for success in bycatch mitigation at the European Small-Scale Fishers Symposium.
Waves of change across Europe
Keeping our team busy with consortia stretching across Europe, two new European projects kicked off this year. CIBBRiNA is charting the course to minimise bycatch of Endangered, Threatened and Protected species in Europe, while SEARCULAR is closing the loop for end-of-life fishing gear, developing circular economy solutions for this ‘waste’ material. Meanwhile, SEAWise is entering its final year, delivering an innovative decision-support tool for Ecosystem Based Fisheries Management in Europe.
National action plans to restore seagrass
We were invited by WWF Cymru and Project Seagrass to facilitate a workshop with the Welsh Seagrass Network. The ambitious goal was to co-create a National Seagrass Action Plan for Wales which could secure funding for rollout across the nation. We were amazed at the sheer volume of incredible seagrass work already underway in Wales, and it was no mean feat for us to unify these efforts and pull together a focussed, prioritised plan in just two days!
Should we create a UK Marine Mammal Forum?
This autumn, MW’s digital wizards and expert facilitators delivered and chaired a brilliantly positive workshop to assess the appetite for a UK Marine Mammal Forum. Bringing together experts across the UK, this workshop grappled with the hypothetical and discussed the deeply practical. Should such a forum be created*? What would the forum do? What would be its goals and objectives? How would it function? What lessons can be learnt from other endeavours?
*The resounding ‘yes’ means watch this space!
Great British seafood
Inspiring a passion for British seafood is in our DNA, so our Campaigns & Advocacy team has been delighted to share the full flavours of local seafood, with Discover Seafood’s latest campaign spotlighting Norfolk this year and Seafood Plymouth’s pioneering work in opening access to seafood in the local community. This year has seen Seafood Plymouth launch their first Discovery Tour, host Catch & Cook sessions, run demos at local markets, and host cookery classes in schools.
Eventos multilingües
A triple-header with MSC saw our Creative Services team help facilitate international webinars with live translation into multiple languages. This helped people from over 30 countries join the three events and follow in their first language to engage in issues around the Chain of Custody, Revised Standard Approach, and the 2024 Tuna Yearbook.
Website wonderland
Exciting work for our Creative Services team this year with a fine haul of websites for marine themed projects and beyond. We’ve been growing global momentum for seafood traceability with a new site for the Global Dialogue on Seafood Traceability and showcasing sustainable building design for Transforming Homes. We’ve also created sites for CIBBRiNA and SEARCULAR and we are about to launch a splash site for the National Fisheries Institute’s newly formed Sushi Council, so watch this space!
