PR, social and experiential agency, Red Havas, has announced the launch of Red Havas Impact in the Australian market. The practice will be led by Managing Partner, Matt Thomas, from the agency’s Melbourne office and will service clients across Australia and New Zealand.

The agency said the new ESG comms offering, which was also recently launched in the US, European, Middle East, and African markets, is the result of increasing demand for global approaches to purpose-driven strategic communications.

This new offering brings together Red Havas’s environmental, social, and corporate governance expertise and capabilities from across the world. Alongside global capabilities, Red Havas Impact will draw on additional strengths from the broader Havas Village, particularly research and planning through Havas Labs, to offer insight-led strategic solutions.

Global CEO James Wright, said: "Red Havas Impact brings together the depth of experience within the global Red Havas micro-network combined with the powerful insights capabilities of our strategy and research teams to support clients to tackle the big issues of our day.

“As a practice area, it draws together our expertise across sustainability, health, technology, employee communications and corporate communications, market research, strategy and brand to create work that helps our clients to meaningfully connect and make a positive difference to their stakeholders.”

Matt Thomas said that purpose-driven work sits at the heart of contemporary communications: “Across the globe we are seeing big shifts in the expectations from consumers, governments and communities that brands should do better and be better. Reputation, brand equity and social license to operate are now inextricably linked. Through Red Havas Impact we leverage skills and experience from across Havas Australia’s service offerings, informed by global best practice, to help our clients to navigate this often complex space.”