Stories of Inspiration: Dogs Trust Ireland and How PawPrints Was Built From Within

A new conversation from Colectivo, watch or listen now

At Colectivo, we start from a simple belief: sustainability strategies built without the people who live them every day rarely last. It's a belief that runs right through our latest conversation with Johann Fox, Head of Partnerships at Dogs Trust Ireland, about the story behind PawPrints, the organisation's internal ESG framework.

The brief could easily have been a familiar one: bring in an agency, gather some interviews, produce a polished report, and move on. But PawPrints was built differently, and this conversation explains why that difference mattered.

Starting with a "what if"

PawPrints began, as Johann puts it, from a "what if" conversation rather than a fixed brief. Rather than adopting something off the shelf, the team wanted to explore what an ESG framework built around their own mission, and their own market context, might look like. Crucially, they didn't yet know what the end result would be, only that it needed to be something the market would respond to, and something staff would feel proud of.

Co-creation as the whole point, not a step in the process

Rather than a small team defining a framework and rolling it out, Dogs Trust Ireland brought in voices from across the organisation: programme teams, operations, veterinary staff, the people answering the phones, fundraising, communications and senior leadership. The result wasn't just a better-informed framework, it was a shared sense of authorship. As Johann explains, people didn't just contribute to PawPrints, they recognised themselves in it once it was finished.

From framework to culture

One of the most telling moments in the conversation is Johann's account of a routine tour of the rehoming centre, where, for the first time, a staff member pointed out the solar panels on the roof and spoke about supplier relationships and energy use, unprompted, to a visitor. That's the marker Johann returns to again and again: not compliance, but ownership. People speaking about sustainability because it's become part of how they see the organisation, not because they were told to.

What's next

PawPrints has since grown beyond an internal framework. It's given rise to the Dog Effect, a new way for Dogs Trust Ireland to engage corporate partners around shared goals, and it's laid the groundwork for the organisation's first sustainability report, due in early 2027. As Johann puts it, this is still only phase one.

Watch or listen to the full conversation

There's a lot more in the full discussion, including the "aha" moments that shaped the project, and why Johann chose the word "ownership" to describe the spirit of this collaboration.

🎥 Watch the full conversation on YouTube → https://youtu.be/5eQlLF7HT0s
🎧 Listen on Spotify → https://open.spotify.com/episode/2JdR6t2WiFenSaIzDOa5Yl?si=sI5iT4XET3-jtXiI9GMWFA

If you're curious about what it really takes to move sustainability from a compliance exercise to a genuine culture shift, this one's for you.

Colectivo works alongside organisations to bring diverse voices into the room, because the best solutions are never built alone.