Right from day one I’ve been a bit of a data nerd when it comes to our environmental and social impact at Do Nation.

In the early days, that involved me cumbersomely copying and pasting pledge data from emails into a master spreadsheet, dragging formula’s across, calculating the carbon saving, and then personally responding to each and every supporter, asking how they got on. The very mention of it makes our CTO Martin shrivel up in horror.

Thankfully, with a bit of his tech-wizzery, we’ve come a long way since then. Integrated carbon, water, and waste calculators; automated follow-ups; and built-in surveys now make analysing our impact a total breeze.

We’ve just finished compiling our 2015 Impact Report, satisfying my nerdish tendencies once again. I thought I’d share some of my highlights from it…

Pledges on our site have resulted in annual savings of:

914 tCO₂ – as much as over 8 million bananas

25 million litres of water – as much as 70 swimming pools

33,114 kg of waste – as heavy as a grey whale!

Some people question whether pledges really turn into action. Thanks to the social nature of  Do Nation, with pledges being made within close-knit communities, the honesty-factor is pretty high. Roughly 47% of our users return to say they succeeded with their pledge, to some extent. Sure, some will lie or over-state how they did, but many users who were successful forget to return to let us know. So all in all, I think our impact report is well over on the conservative side.

The health and wellbeing benefits were, as always, most striking. 69% users report improved wellbeing thanks to their pledge and 47% improved health. Our health is so tightly connected to the health of our planet.

People often think that ‘being eco’ costs money and takes time, citing that as an excuse for inaction – but 49% of our users say they saved money, and more people said they saved time than used more time by doing their pledge.

I used to think that our impact was all about the pledges. But I’ve realised that we also play a big role in empowering leaders, by equipping them with the tools to create change around them. I think the stats below back that up nicely.

Within our work with companies, the stand-out impact is around employee engagement. On average, well over 1/3 of employees take part in a Do Nation program (sometimes as high as 91%!), and 77% of these say they are more proud of their organisation as a result.

You can download the full report here, if you are a bit of a data nerd like me.