Full Markes for Awareness

Markes International is a relatively small company – just over 100 people – and that means the cofounders have been able to successfully foster a culture of social responsibility that echoes their own ethics and roots.

Typically, those involved in analytical science are inherently socially responsible – assisting as they do in endeavors focused on ensuring a safer and healthier world – and that’s an excellent cornerstone for CSR. Markes is certainly proud that its products have a positive effect on society; they help scientists to detect chemicals in materials, products and the environment and in doing so, make the world a better place. But Markes go one step further, honing in on the activities of less responsible companies with a long-term focus on trace-level volatile and semi-volatile organic compounds released by industry. Indeed, providing straightforward and reliable detection of such chemicals is the first step in gaining knowledge, increasing pressure, and finally driving legislation – thus minimizing the impact on public health. What could be more socially responsible than that?

Markes International is a relatively small company – just over 100 people – and that means the cofounders have been able to successfully foster a culture of social responsibility that echoes their own ethics and roots.

Typically, those involved in analytical science are inherently socially responsible – assisting as they do in endeavors focused on ensuring a safer and healthier world – and that’s an excellent cornerstone for CSR. Markes is certainly proud that its products have a positive effect on society; they help scientists to detect chemicals in materials, products and the environment and in doing so, make the world a better place. But Markes go one step further, honing in on the activities of less responsible companies with a long-term focus on trace-level volatile and semi-volatile organic compounds released by industry. Indeed, providing straightforward and reliable detection of such chemicals is the first step in gaining knowledge, increasing pressure, and finally driving legislation – thus minimizing the impact on public health. What could be more socially responsible than that?

Grass roots support

Markes is also committed to advanced research with several ongoing collaborations, such as the University of York’s pollution monitoring CAPACITIE project at the York Environmental Sustainability Institute (YESI), and the European-funded QUAFETY project (www.quafety.eu), which aims to improve the safety and quality of fresh produce by developing new methods to quantify and manage spoilage. Outside of the food and environmental fields, Markes has teamed up with an Austrian healthcare company that aims to use volatile compounds as biomarkers in exhaled breath to distinguish potentially aggressive lung cancer from more benign illnesses.

But is doing ‘the day job’ enough to satisfy true CSR needs? Probably, but Markes International also recognizes the value in getting involved in the local community at a grass-roots level. It supports several employment initiatives at the local and national level, offers summer placements and work experience to undergraduates and local schoolchildren, respectively, and even sponsors the Pontyclun under-12s rugby team (co-founder Alun Cole is a former player!).

The founders are also very passionate about education and the next generation. “We also take time out to visit high schools,” says marketing manager Gavin Davies, “But we don’t just send scientists, we also discuss other job functions to help spread the word that working for a ‘daunting’ science company can be a very rewarding career choice.” Bridging the gap in this way is unlikely to help Markes directly, instead it’s part of a bigger strategy to help “the average person in the pub” relate to the hidden science all around them.

To that end, recognizing the great work done by our field and acknowledging just how unrecognized and misunderstood those efforts can be – Davies turned an interesting marketing opportunity on its head.

Campaigning for science

In what is believed to be a first for a small laboratory instrument company, Markes has been plastering train stations in the UK with poster advertisements that simply and concisely inform the general public how Markes – but, more importantly, chemical analysis as a whole – makes our world “healthier and safer through science”.

Davies explains the concept of the campaign: “We are trying to join the dots between the equipment we make and its place in society – that is to say, the positive impact it is having on everyone’s lives. To do that, we need to help people feel more at ease with chemistry as a whole.” The campaign fits nicely into the overarching goal. “In short, we want to raise the profile of analytical science – that’s got to be good for society in the long run. If we can just trigger the imagination of a few individuals and get them interested in chemical analysis, we might, in some small way, be responsible for the Francis William Astons of tomorrow.”