GLA trawls agencies for recycling drive boost

The Greater London Authority (GLA) is seeking an advertising agency to develop its message about recycling in London, and is thought to be talking to agencies off its roster as well as its retained agencies.

The Recycle for London campaign has been running since 2003 but the most up-to-date figures show London is only recycling about 17.5% of its waste. Now the Mayor of London Ken Livingstone’s department feels that a new piece of creative work is necessary to give the campaign a boost. The new work will continue to focus on trying to get Londoners to recycle more of their waste but will also encourage residents to recycle with greater frequency.

The GLA’s &£1.5m business is shared between a roster of agencies that includes DDB London, Euro RSCG London, Nitro, PHD Compass, Quiet Storm and Team Saatchi among others.

The current roster was fixed in 2004 and since then has been responsible for all campaigns supporting the policies of London Mayor Ken Livingstone. But it is understood that the department has approached at least one other well-known agency that is not on the roster, indicating that GLA decision makers may have lost faith in the work produced by its retained agencies.

Last month the GLA appointed advertising agency Folk to develop a multi-media project to attract sponsors for the organisation’s environmental initiatives.