It’s January 2020, and in the last 6 months we’ve seen an unprecedented 7.6 million people take to the streets to protest against climate change. We’ve witnessed the devastating effects of fires caused by climate change in Australia. We’ve been horrified by the senselss Amazonian fires across Brazil.
Dubbed “the climate” it now regularly features in televised political debates across all parties and even the Kardashians have tweeted that “climate change is real’.
So what role do brands play as agents of social and environmental change?
It’s time for brands to pivot, take bold steps and build robust plans to support their glossy purpose statements – the good news is that brands are one by one stepping up. Giant icons such as Formula 1 announced their commitment to be carbon neutral by 2030, and Microsoft have said they will be carbon negative by 2030.
Simply put by Laura Hunter “The brands that step up will be remembered and the ones that don’t will probably be consigned to the history books”
People are asking brands to behave in a more caring way and the pressure is on. Brands need to figure out their role in finding solutions “pretty pronto”.
With purchase decisions now made at a peer-to-peer level citizens are expecting more truth and honesty about the products they are buying.
With all this excitement and agitation on climate change it is vital to capitalize on this heightened sense of urgency and take the conversation from talk to action. “We need to take that urgency (..) and turn it into something that people want to run towards and not retreat from”
These are some of the points we touched on during this lively conversation with Laura Hunter, Creative Director at Futerra in episode 4 of the Grandkids Test podcast. Tune in for the full interview below, or in any podcast app: