About four years ago my wife and I decided it was time to buy that tree farm we had always wanted.
Having spent years in NY and London hard at work in advertising, we jumped on a plane and headed for a stint in Australia. On the way we spent six months traveling through South and Central America. We had an amazing experience – as I am sure you can imagine – involving lots of books and enough Argentinean wine and steak to last a lifetime.
Whilst we traveled frivolously, talking through our plans for the future, one thing troubled us. A nagging voice in our heads. Everywhere we went, from the Amazon jungle to Terra Del Fuego, we were told that man’s impact on the environment was harming the delicate ecosystems of these incredible and once pristine places. We were shocked to discover, in the things we saw and the books we read, that our very own carefree, everyday actions were part of the problem!
Upon arrival in Australia we spent a month on the Sunshine Coast, Qld, where we resolved to put our little bit back. People thought we were mad – or at the very least naïve – but we decided that our small contribution to fixing environmental degradation would be a left-field decision to make a forest. We will call this the ‘Tree Hugger in crisis’ phase of life.
The result of this decision was to purchase thirty-six acres of disused cane farmland on which, in partnership with the amazing people at Noosa LandCare, we planted 14,000 sustainable plantation trees and 2,000 rainforest trees. I am pleased to say, so far so good – we now have a towering lush green forest doing its bit for carbon sequestration.
However, as it always does, reality bit and we headed south to continue our careers and start a family. Fast forward to 2007 and that nagging voice still won’t go away. As the rising tide of environmental concern washes over Australia, I am sure many of us are struggling to reconcile our worries about over-consumption, excessive waste and pollution with the reality of our jobs in advertising and marketing.
Of course I try to reduce, re-use, recycle at home and work with the best of them. Frankly it is becoming an obsession. However, once you start to really analyse this stuff you begin to realise the magnitude and complexity of the issues. As a result it becomes a challenge to align changing attitudes towards sustainability with the overall output and product of the marketing communications industry. Ultimately it all too easily manifests itself in helpless thoughts and statements such as “But what can I really do to change this?”
It is a classic marketing conundrum. So, like any good planner, I decided to find a strategic answer to the question “Can marketing become more sustainable?”. This next stage of life, which we will call ‘ECO-PANIC!’, is on the face of it a little less radical than buying a tree farm. This time around, I decided I needed some academic theory to back up my arsenal of thoughts and ideas around sustainability.
After talking to every conceivable Professor of sustainability and the environment in south-eastern Australian universities I discovered (quite by chance) the Centre for Sustainable Leadership in Melbourne. Established by Larissa, a tenacious 26 year old innovator, this not-for-profit organisation runs a series of programmes designed to make rapid advances in addressing the question around sustainability.
Now every Tuesday evening (and for one entire week camped out in the middle of the Otway Ranges National Park) with twenty-one colleagues I immerse myself in various projects aimed at finding solutions for a more sustainable approach to everyday life. It really is fascinating and inspiring.
The group ranges from scientists to sustainability officers. The projects are in turn incredibly diverse. For example my friend Jack is currently working on The Thousand Year Plan for Planet Earth. Anna L is launching a company focused on Nana-Technology (as in back-to-basics technology that your nana used – like knitting, crocheting and sewing) and a website for Melbourne’s 200km diet. Dan, on the other hand, has just opened Melbourne’s first Bio-Fuels service station called Conservo!
Other people associated with the programme include a guy called James who turned an internship at the UN in Geneva into a position as the head of a Secretariat now overseeing the sustainable investment of $9trillion in Super Fund capital. Last night we met a twenty-year-old called Dan who managed to get Bono to sing at his Make Poverty History concert in Melbourne attracting an audience of millions.
What I have realised on my journey is that much of what these people have achieved is the result of leadership, communication and a ‘can be done’ attitude. These are precisely the skills that we, as an industry, hold in the highest esteem.
Too much of the debate around sustainability is hijacked by the radicalism around the environmental movement referred to as ‘Dark Green’. Alternatively we face the tokenism of greenwash advertising campaigns and publicity stunts mockingly referred to as ‘Light Green’.
This column will focus on the positive, innovative, exciting developments around green business and marketing communications. Hence the title ‘Bright Green’. This is inspired by Bruce Sterling’s Viridian Manifesto from January 2000 which led to a plethora of books and websites such as worldchanging.com and treehugger.com.
Bright Green will be a compendium of all the good stuff happening in the green space in Australia (and from around the world). The idea being that, like me, most marketers have the care, but not the time, to embark upon sustainable projects which are often at the bottom of the priority list.
This will act as a short cut for all the inspiring, positive, future-proofing work that is taking place today. Hopefully it will act as a catalyst for us to overcome the seemingly impossible challenges of putting sustainability at the heart of our behaviour as an industry.
In This Together 