TheMovesWeMakeTheMovesWeMake

The challenges set out in our Status Quo are real. The creative sector saw its first employment decline in over a decade. Environmental charities faced funding shortfalls, with donations to conservation slipping from 7% to 4% of total giving. Nearly half of environmental professionals report a passion pay gap, where pay fails to reflect experience or responsibility.

Yet within those headwinds, something shifted. In 2025, Driftime launched its Foundations services for the kind of partners who carry the most impact and the least resource.

We built them around a single problem, the resource constraints and thin government support that organisations face on major social and environmental issues. Where many agencies met market pressure by raising prices, Driftime asked a different question. How might high-value design become more accessible to the people doing vital work? The answer has shaped everything that follows.

Our emissions kept falling through 2025, helped by far less travel, sustained remote working, and new tools for lower-carbon digital outputs.

We found partners who share our values. We contributed to communities working towards the same goals. We made mistakes, learned from them, and kept moving.

The B Corp movement offers a useful frame. UK B Corps are over twice as likely to embed impact in decision-making and nearly three times as likely to have climate experts on their board. These aren't aspirational numbers. They describe a different way of operating that's gaining ground.

What follows is an account of what Driftime did with the year. Not a highlight reel, but an honest record of the partnerships formed, the communities strengthened, the environmental contributions made, and the team that made it possible. Some of it worked. Some of it stretched us thin. All of it taught us something about the kind of agency we're becoming.