W+K planner Sophie Dollar today presented our project Off-On at the M&S Sustainability Conference at the Queen Elizabeth Conference Centre in Westminster.

Off-On's key objective is to encourage employees to do more good by behaving in a more environmentally responsible way.

Today's annual conference is part of M&S's commitment to corporate social responsibility and is part of 'Plan A' – an initiative the company launched in 2007 which has set out 180 commitments to achieve by 2015.  M&S's ultimate goal is to become the world's most sustainable, major retailer.

Sophie presented Off-On as part of the afternoon session: 'How to engage your employees' – and continued to spread the word that a democratic, simple and accessible idea is the key to sustainable behaviour change.

Judging by the string of delegates queuing to congratulate her following her slot – people are certainly listening!

Article in Creativity about our new initiative: Off-On.

Wieden + Kennedy London is launching Off-On, an in-house initiative to expend less energy in order to do more good. The new effort employs tangible reminders like screen savers and LED displays to encourage staffers to shut down power guzzlers when they're not in use, while showing them where the money saved will ultimately go—to help provide solar power to a children's home in Nairobi, via a partnership with NGO Solar Aid.

Off-On employs a custom-made system created by W+K with engineers from Pell Frischmann that monitors energy use in real time to update W+K staffers on their progress. By reducing our energy consumption by about 10% in a year, we will be able to save enough to provide solar power for four classrooms and a kitchen.

Our ambition is to turn Off-On into free open-source software that can be used by all businesses and schools to reduce their energy consumption and help provide power to people in the developing world.

Check out the Off-On pilot below, launching on Thursday: