Dr. Brilliant and wot’s just round da corner
Author: Dave Brown | Category: Sustainability
It’s a changing world. We need to re-design our behaviour.
Dave Brown - Teaches ad creativity at AUT. He is currently doing a masters degree in sustainable consumption.
“Turn off that tap.”
“You can compost those.”
“It’s much more fun on a scooter.”
The discourse surrounding the issue of sustainability is accelerating daily. A large part includes issues beyond design, but having said that, design is a term that can stretch into politics, transport, eating behaviour, purchasing decisions, or just about anything to do with the way we consume.
A recent trip to the UK gave me the opportunity to ask questions with some leading industry players about the looming challenges of sustainable living.
With growing evidence of climate change and resource depletion there has to be a way of re-designing our behaviour so we can somehow survive with a decent plan for following generations. And part of the answer will be to make the necessary changes attractive, rather than loathsome.
There is so much noise currently out there that the first thing we need to design is an information filter we can trust. One way to do that is to pluck out the sources we rate, and pass them round. I’m talking mainly internet sites, as time is short.
Here are some I’ll throw on the table for starters. There’s a gent I visited in Hampstead called John Grant who talks on greenormal.blogspot.com. A recent rave (Sat Feb 9) mentions Dr. Larry Brilliant and his google guys and what they are up to investment-wise as a response to climate change. For that just click YouTube and punch dr brilliant – davos.
Back to Mr. Grant. He used to work in advertising as a strategic planner – now he’s a consultant to eco-preneurs. His book (pictured) is a very useful map indeed, and you can read a sample on amazon.com. For a general site worth checking he suggests evo.com from the US, which in some way corresponds with our own NZ site celsias.com
Next is a fave site called TED.com which stands for technology, entertainment and, yes - design. The logo is accompanied with the words ‘Ideas worth spreading’. And here are just a few: Robin Chase on dealing to cars, Ken Robinson on dealing with creativity, Michael Pollan on dealing with nature, and even Howard Kunstler on a great deal of suburbia compared to William McDonough on a great deal for suburbia.
The list goes on and the site is continuously updated. After a dose of TED you get the feeling there is a way out of this. A number of ways in fact.
To put the sword to the test we need to address how the problem can become the solution. As I mentioned a lot depends on how the messages are pitched. So I talked to a fellow near Carnaby Street who works in the persuasion industry and is very successful at it. John Hegarty (just knighted) runs a global advertising agency called BBH. He’s one of a few industry giants who has a genuine interest in the challenges of living sustainably. He straddles the delicate tightrope between an industry that encourages ongoing consumption and a world that is rapidly growing obese with dodgy habits.
As a successful creative thinker and businessman, Hegarty is an optimist by nature and sees the challenges before us needing a discourse of excitement and opportunity. He believes ‘sustainability’ should be treated as an industry, much like coal and oil, both which he admits are yesterday’s solutions to energy. He is an absolute fanatic about the power of ideas, yet realises they need to be nurtured and gift wrapped for the public to accept them. He also feels what is important is that the idea does not necessarily have to be new, just better.
An example we discussed is a UK brand of natural smoothies called innocent. Nothing new about drinking liquid extracted from fruit, but this brand has the industry’s most stringent requirements on pure ingredients. The only additives are rigorous taste tests together with delightful packaging and marketing magic.
I paid a visit with Jessica Samson at their London HQ. She is their marketing manager who has just joined innocent from a spell at Coca Cola and is quickly adjusting to the change in culture. Armed with a Masters degree in environmental law, Samson stressed the importance of consumer trust in the brand’s culture. They respond with ruthless control of product sourcing. So for the entire range there is only one type of strawberry, suitable at only one time of the year when in season.
With the dividends of a successful brand come the challenges of sustainable growth and the innocent brand which hopes to be Europe’s favourite in its category, has every likelihood of being a template for the future.
It may appear simplistic to snatch a few examples of green marketing and expect everything to follow suit. The whole sustainability question is extraordinarily complex - in a large part due to the public traffic jam of time poverty, information overload and stubborn behavioural habit. So it helps to have a few lighthouses who steer us away from the reefs of misinformation and cast light on the solid stuff.
One such person who is familiar to us and only recently spoke in NZ is Alistair Fuad-Luke. There’s nothing like chewing the sustainable fat with him over a pub lunch in Devon, a pleasure I was lucky to have on a visit in January. Fuad-Luke, if anything is a champion of sustainable behaviour, and he understands the depth of commitment required by governments, industry and the public.
His website’s simple definition of sustainability is the best I can find and should be memorised as part of our future mantra.
www.kaw84@dial.pipex.com
‘Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability for future generations to meet their own needs’.
And just to test the climate of change it’s worth checking the recommendation from a recent study of supermarket food titled ‘Green, healthy and fair’ (google) from the British Sustainable Development Commission. For an equally nutritious yet slimmed down version of this entire report punch: (
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7247384.stm)
Yes, there are some indications that sustainable messages might drive behavioural change, but is there enough time remaining?
Much depends on our willingness to respond, and that depends on the quality of discourse. It helps to have governments who are prepared to act and certainly in the USA not much will change until the White House administration does.
Hopefully then we can ride a global wave of change for the better.
Posted on 6 November 2008, 01:56 p.m.
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