Lauren Scott-Harris

EARNT

Lauren Scott-Harris is the Founder of EARNT. With over 20 years of experience in the communications space, focusing on mould-breaking, founder-led, dynamic start ups including Headspace and onefinestay, she has represented clients in a wide variety of silos in both the UK and US. Her agency, Scott Ideas, was started in 2010, rebranding in 2022 as The Re-Agency (a nod to a new world where we needed to re-examine, re-connect, re-think and re-group for the post- pandemic world) co-founded with long time business partner Emma Harding.

In 2022, EARNT was launched with a simple thought - what if there was a limited edition item (eg sneakers) that you could only access if you came to a hosted and verified beach clean up. No gifting, no short-cuts, if you want the item, you had to do something good for the planet or society first. Given that our planet has limited and precious resources (and yet we can Klarna and Amazon Prime almost anything we want resulting in us consuming at an unsustainable
rate) why not use the energy people have for things they desire and convert them into actions the planet needs? Thus, EARNT was born out of the idea that by triangulating brands with causes and consumers, a virtuous cycle could benefit each stakeholder. Simply put, the brands choose a cause partner and ask their consumers to give their time volunteering with them in order to access the brands inner circle, creating a brand new type of VIP that is the result of doing things that are good for the planet or society.

EARNT creates, manages and monitors the system. Scott-Harris says; “People will go to extraordinary lengths to access things from their favourite brands. Waiting in line for hours for limited editions, setting alarms for first access to drops, spending hours refreshing browsers to get tickets....it seemed that this was a lot of kinetic energy that we could put to better use. Not only that but by asking people to give their time and energy to causes we felt we could reconnect communities and start celebrating those people who give back to the world - not just those with a big following with nice aesthetics. We have all had more than enough of green washing and purpose washing, so this seemed like a tangible and real way to get things done.”

Previous partners have included The River Cafe, Soho House, Summerill & Bishop, Design Hotels, Desmond & Dempsey and cult west London pub, The Pelican. Early 2024 saw EARNT joining forces with Hagen Project to create the first loylalty programme of its kind. Next partners include a global hotel group and a luxury fashion label - with many more partnerships dropping throughout the year.