Positioning Watershed as an authoritative voice on carbon reporting and CSRD compliance in Europe
- Accelerated market entry: Built rapid awareness across Europe, delivering 26 proactive articles, 10 thought leadership opportunities and two case studies.
- High-profile visibility: Secured early coverage in influential international and policy-focused media.
- German market impact: Delivered sustained media and analyst engagement in a key growth market.
Challenge
Watershed is a US-based sustainability platform used by organisations to measure, report and reduce their carbon footprint, with a strong emphasis on supporting compliance with environmental regulation.
As Watershed prepared to enter Europe, it faced a dual challenge. It had limited brand awareness across the region, while the sustainability and carbon accounting market, particularly in France, was already crowded with established European players.
At the same time, Watershed’s European growth strategy was tied to the introduction of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), using regulatory compliance as a core route to market.
Strategy
Rather than leading with a traditional market entry announcement, we focused on building Watershed’s European profile through a sustained thought leadership programme. The aim was to prioritise credibility and relevance over product news, positioning Watershed as an expert voice on sustainability policy and the wider challenges of ESG measurement.
We tailored the narrative to the issues shaping debate across priority markets and sectors, ensuring Watershed consistently showed up in the conversations that mattered most to businesses, policymakers and influencers responding to new regulation.
A key differentiator was Watershed’s ambition to engage beyond business and trade media. By leaning into the policy dimension, particularly conversations linked to Brussels, we positioned the company as a credible participant
"As we entered Europe, it was critical for Watershed to be seen as a credible voice on CSRD and sustainability regulation, not just another vendor in a crowded market. Tyto helped us shape a thoughtful, policy-aware narrative and ensured we showed up in the right conversations with the right audiences across Europe."
Amelia Penniman
Head of Communications at Watershed
Approach
Tyto worked closely with Watershed on a fully integrated European programme, spanning the UK, France and Germany.
The campaign was deliberately thought leadership-led, accounting for most of the activity. We delivered proactive and reactive commentary on CSRD, alongside sector- and issue-based angles such as sustainability measurement in high-emissions industries including transport, aviation and retail, and responses to evolving policy developments.
To support Watershed’s policy objectives, we used Tyto’s Tech 500 to identify and prioritise influential stakeholders and voices, particularly in Germany, where policy engagement played a central role in market planning.
Alongside ongoing media outreach, we helped Watershed design and deliver press events in Paris, Berlin and London. These brought together senior spokespeople, customer perspectives and regulatory insight, and were structured to feel holistic and informative rather than sales-led, combining practical implementation experience with a clear view on what CSRD meant for European organisations in practice.
We also incorporated targeted analyst engagement in Germany, reflecting the market’s strong interest in sustainability regulation and compliance-focused issues.
Accelerated Watershed’s European market entry
Rapidly built awareness and credibility across priority markets, delivering 26 proactive articles, 10 thought leadership opportunities and two case studies, securing high-impact coverage in influential outlets that Watershed had not previously appeared in.
Broke into high-profile media
Achieved strong placement in top-tier titles, including Forbes, while increasing visibility in policy-focused media to strengthen credibility with Brussels-adjacent audiences.
Increased visibility in Germany
Delivered sustained coverage and meaningful engagement with media and analysts in a key growth market for Watershed.
Built a Perfect Partnership
Worked hand-in-hand with Watershed’s policy experts, gaining a deep understanding of their tone and regulatory perspective to deliver consistent, credible content across Europe with an authentic and distinctive voice.