Only One is an impact-driven action platform for the planet, inviting people to make monthly donations to fund projects that nourish our ocean and support the Indigenous communities living alongside our deep blue. By planting ocean trees and coral reefs, removing carbon from our atmosphere and plastic from our seas, Only One tracks the remarkable progress in our collective mission to disrupt the climate crisis, aligning community with action on one accessible digital space.
Collaboration shaped by longevity
Driftime and Only One have been collaborating for an ocean-focused 2 years now, establishing their partnership in 2020 with an initial scope of just 6 months. Now armed with an agile, low carbon website, a progressive web app, and over 20,000 people funding solutions, Only One are leading the way in positive climate impact, recently recognised as one of Fast Company’s most innovative not-for-profit organisations of 2022.
Our involvement with Only One has grown as our team has expanded, gradually integrating up to 5 members of the Drifteam with an international Only One Product Team of 7 (at time of writing). With our collaborative work spanning product and project management, product design, strategy and user experience, contributing to impact communications on ocean education, and design systems, our unique relationship has developed organically, with a regular review of practice, process, and progress to reflect on how to optimise impact and engagement through partnership and design.
Over 320,000 square kilometers of ocean protected in the Eastern Tropical Pacific
Impact driven by good decision making
At source, the Only One platform has two flows: Act and Learn. We’ve shaped a digital space that gives members a meaningful choice, empowering users with knowledge, and giving them decision-making power over their donations. It feels important to design a platform that makes it simple for users to react and respond to urgent causes and campaigns without compromising on a sentiment of hope — our ambition is to uplift, educate, and advocate with meaning and impact.
Our partnership often works towards milestones in the climate calendar, with Giving Tuesday, an annual campaign that falls in November, bringing all of the Only One team to collaborate with the Driftime team. We work in sprints, blending Driftime processes and iterating our practice as we reach new milestones. To date, Only One members have increased fourfold since launch, with a continually reducing rate of unsubscribes (currently at 2.3%) in the last 6 months. By its very nature, the product is ongoing and changeable, with an emphasis on a need for adaptability and agility. Only One are adept at responding to our insights into sustainable and regenerative design, listening to our perspective and making changes where needed.
California passes comprehensive bill to tackle plastic pollution
Acknowledgment
Only One answers to a number of external frameworks and criteria that accounts for their impact, ranging from the eight acts of Design Declares! and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals to wider B Corp frameworks.
As an action platform with international impact, Only One actively demonstrates four Sustainable Development Goals as an organisation, with each project exploring additional goals including economic growth, health and well-being, gender equality, and poverty prevention. Through “Employ to Plant” methodologies in Kenya, responsible consumption and production in India, and nurturing sustainable communities in Cambodia, Only One champions authentic impact across the globe, committing to climate action, partnerships for sustainable goals, and life above and below water.
Design Declares! is a UK based campaign daring to reimagine the way we create products, services, and designed solutions to influence and accelerate climate repair and justice. Whilst D! is a UK initiative and doesn’t extend to US signatories yet, we can align Only One’s practice with each act, and plan to further support each mission as time goes on. By sounding the alarm with ocean education and amplifying voices for change through petitions and campaigns, Only One continues to design for justice and redefine “good”, with the view to exceed expectations and set a new standard for the industry. In terms of B Corp’s Impact Assessment process, Only One strongly aligns with improving the impact of client organisations, and actively supports the environment through continual economic and ecological support through ongoing projects and impact communications.
Nurture trust and champion transparency
As a not-for-profit, transparency is essential to nurture trust with both members contributing funds, and the communities Only One are working with on location. Driftime collaborated with Only One to make impact reporting reachable to everyone who wants to learn more about internal processes and relationships, shaping an “About Us Hub” that centres transparency, campaigns, projects, and the team championing the ocean. Only One operates with a 100% model — every cent of funds donated go directly to solutions in the field, with progress and results documented in a regularly updated Impact Dashboard, and archived in a comprehensive annual Impact Report, 100% Model Audit, and Form 990. The Impact Report we’re creating for 2022 will be the first, an accessibly presented report of actions, impact and finances. Design will play a big part in increasing the transparency of Only One actions through this Impact Report, building on the “About Us Hub”, and wider impact communications within and beyond the organisation.
Only One tracks all its impact, with each action documented on member dashboards with open access information. Visually, members see their impact in their dashboard through the four core actions: ocean trees planted, 🌱 corals planted, 🪸 plastic removed, 🥽 and carbon reduced 🏭. For every gram of carbon sequestered to every mangrove seedling planted, a unique ID is created, linking donations to the projects they are supporting. Having specific insight into the partners in action, access to photos on the site, and detailed reporting about the project provides an insider’s understanding of the connection between donation and deed.
🌱 Planting ocean trees
In addition to planting one million mangrove trees in Port Reitz creek in Kenya, Only One partner Eden Reforestation Projects have a considerable community impact, employing over 670 people through the “Employ to Plant” methodology across the country. Connecting with community first and foremost, Eden Reforestation establishes strong relationships with local leaders who want to see the revitalisation of their environment.
🪸 Planting coral
Only One members are funding the planting of 10,000 corals in the waters of Nusa Penida, an Indonesian island located in the Coral Triangle. Coral planting partners Ocean Gardener have 20 years of hands-on experience working with Indonesian coastal communities, with the project being led by local experts on marine conservation and innovation. Whilst restoring habitats for more than 500 species of reef fish, the project is planting over five species of coral to complement the high-energy reef environment, supporting 26 employees from the local community.
Similarly, island innovators in French Polynesia are restoring 10,000 “super corals” to the reef to save wildlife habitat and spread global awareness. Only One coral planting partners Coral Gardeners have grown since 2017 into an international collective of advocates, scientists, engineers, and creators determined to build a global movement to save the reef. This project employs upwards of 23 permanent employees and interns in the area, including local former fisherfolk and surfers, to give them a more consistent source of income.
🥽 Removing plastics
In partnership with Plastics for Change, Only One members are funding the removal of 25,000 kilograms of plastic from the Indian Ocean coastal belt, stopping the flow of plastic into the ocean, helping to conserve marine life, and contributing directly to informal waste workers’ incomes. India is one of 17 mega-biodiverse countries worldwide, so by fighting ocean-bound plastic, frontline waste workers are providing hope to India’s ecosystems and ocean biodiversity everywhere.
🏭 Reducing carbon
Over in Cambodia, Only One members are funding the reduction of 2000 tonnes of carbon by helping to preserve a 445,339-hectare ridge-to-reef watershed in Southern Cardamom with project partner Stand for Trees. Southern Cardamom’s ecosystems also include 2,000+ hectares of pristine mangrove forest, a “blue carbon” environment capable of storing four times as much carbon as rainforests on land, in turn supporting around 16,000 local people living in communities adjacent to the project, with women holding 63% of management positions in the project.
We are designing a future with impact through co-creation
With more than two fulfilling years behind us, our partnership has grown and developed in every capacity, but we still recognise the room for improvement. We want to continue to play our part in shaping a digital platform that empowers people to take action and learn about the ocean, designing features that empower change and impact and put users at ease. During our relationship we’ve collated an outstanding backlog of innovative ideas that haven’t yet had the time or resource to be actioned, we will continue to streamline workflow and facilitate efficient iterations alongside their team. We see our product relationship with Only One as a sculpture, gradually chipping away to refine our process and outcome whilst working to fully adopt a design-led iterative process.
We see the future of design not just to be informed by the planet, but to be led by it. 🌍
