Think Big Act Now
How Babette Porcelijn wants to save the planet and how we can help her getting there
Strategic Designer Babette Porcelijn has set up the initiative Think Big Act Now. Within this initiative she is developing a book about ‘hidden energy in our daily lives’. This book will not only show how the Earth’s ecosystem is working, but also will give suggestions on how each and everyone of us can live in a more sustainable way.
Babette is currently busy with a crowd funding campaign to make this book happen. What did make you decide to dedicate yourself towards sustainability and contributing to save the planet?
“Actually, my husband Rick was reading about human impact on the environment and he pinned lots of infographics about the topic. One day he told me about his new insights and I was baffled. Knocked off my feet. I already knew we were in trouble as mankind, but I didn’t know it was this bad and this urgent. Not only to polar bears but to our very selves. My kids! I instantly decided to devote my work to improving our chances of a pleasant future by doing what I do best: communication by design. The words Think Big Act Now came to me on the spot and that is still the name of our initiative.”
If each human being would live like we do here in Western Europe, what impact would that have on planet Earth? Would one Earth be enough of a source to allow people this kind of lifestyle?
“Well, you’ve hit the nail on the head. We need about three Earths to sustain the worlds’ population if everyone lived like us. We only have one.
I find Earth Overshoot Day very insightful. It was last week, on August 13. Each year Earth Overshoot Day is a few days earlier. So even with all the poor countries in the world, we are already over-spending our eco-budget.”
Can you give an example on how you will use design and communication to help people with changing their way of living towards a more sustainable lifestyle?
“To my opinion, we need both to make people see what’s going on, and we need to empower them to take action. Because what we as civilians do has a far bigger impact than we usually think. Let’s rub off this feeling of being helpless, because we’re not. Let’s get our heads out of the sand and start doing what we can while we still have the chance. Cause we do.
The book shows what’s going on in a compact, attractive and understandable way. We quantify problems, compare solutions and we reveal blind spots in the way we look at the environment. The book clarifies what you can do. It structures your thinking, so that you can ask the right questions and know what to look for.
To give one example, we are developing a top 10 of consumer choices with the biggest impact. We include all kinds of impact, such as direct and hidden energy, greenhouse gases, land use, water use, toxics, pressure on resources etc.”
You recently talked about developing an eco-points system, which could help people live in a more sustainable way. Can you explain that in a concrete example?
“Like Stefan Sagmeister said at the VBAT session at What Design Can Do, people need direct feedback on their actions. Concrete feedback, here and now. So after I launched the book I’m going to develop an ‘eco-points system’, inspired by the Weight Watchers Points program. It is still at an early stage but this is what it could look like: you will get a daily budget for food, water, transportation etc. The yearly budget covers holidays, clothes, furniture, phones, computers etc, and the life budget would cover houses, cars, offspring… You can also earn points by taking action at work, by planting trees, by helping NGO’s, by aiding sustainable politics. I’d like to make it a fun tool, with badges and medals. Like Smashrun for instance.”
If your crowd funding campaign works out, what will happen next in order to save the planet?
“My goal is to reach as many people as I possibly can with this story. This first edition will be in Dutch, and I then would love to translate it to English and other languages. That’s not as easy as it sounds, because we will need to adapt the content to the other countries as well.”
How much money do you still need to make the book happen and where will the money be spent on?
“We still need about 2.000 euros to complete the crowd funding campaign. If we don’t reach the 5.500 euros, we get nothing so I’m getting a bit worried now. If we do reach the target amount, we can hire a scientific agency to help us complete our top 10 and to check our calculations.”
Explain your motto “Life starts at the end of your comfort zone.”
“Nice one, thanks for asking. I love to explore the boundaries of my abilities. Like the time when we cycled from Amsterdam to Rome with our kids. Never thought I could do it, but we had a fantastic journey. I like to reinvent myself from time to time, coming closer to my true abilities and ambitions every time. Knowing what I’m good or poor at helps me perform better. Like Einstein said, you can’t expect to get different results if you keep doing the same thing over and over again. To me, exploring the boundaries makes life interesting and memorable.
This habit is also visible in my studio: we cover interior design, web design and branding. The goal is always the same though, to get the clients’ message across. I could never have such a broad approach if I didn’t like to stray and search. That’s what makes me tick: explore, invent, rethink, go into unknown territory with an open mind and see what I can learn. I love the struggle to understand difficult things, to find the rules of the game and to learn to play. Makes any sense?”
And last but not least: If you could choose to live in the most sustainable place on Earth, where would that be?
“Ha that’s a tricky one. To evade your question a little bit, I would say Earth is just one place and we share it with 7 billion people. I would still choose my own house in Amsterdam, because I think here I can make the biggest difference. By doing what I do best in the place I know best. And who knows, Amsterdam may become among the most sustainable places on Earth in a few decades… ;-)”
Do you want to help Babette to get her book published? You can support her crowd funding campaign here.
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Written by Connie Fluhme
PR at VBAT
