Hi, I’m Liz. I’m a planning director at Wieden+Kennedy New York, and I want 2030 to be the year I sold less shit than ever before.
You see, for the past few years, I’ve been feeling rather powerless and guilty.
Powerless while I watched the world burning — literally, sometimes. And guilty because the more I educated myself about the factors behind climate change, the more I felt my job as a saleswoman of stuff made me responsible.
After about a year wasted apologizing for my career at cocktail parties, I thought I knew the answer: I would go back to school and become a Person Who Comes Up With Solutions. Visualize that in title case, like one of those ridiculous epithets people come up with for conferences. I started taking classes in sustainable design at Pratt. I would no longer be passively responsible for tying a pretty bow around a steaming pile of shit at the tail end of the process.
I learned a lot. Not least of which is that I still have a lot to learn, because there are a ton of really passionate people out there working on brilliant solutions to complex problems. But one of the most empowering things I learned is that a skill we all have is actually just as valuable as that of a chemist developing compostable plastics.
I’m talking about storytelling. Richard Powers uses this as a key theme of his 2018 book The Overstory, which I happened to be reading around the same time I was realizing it in the classroom. To quote: “The best arguments in the world won’t change a person’s mind. The only thing that can do that is a good story.”
I’m no longer young enough to have the arrogance to think I’m the first person to come to this realization. But I hope I’m part of a growing wave of people who realize it and don’t become so jaded they stop trying to change the system.
So that’s why by 2030, I want us to sell less shit.
Selling less shit doesn’t mean taking a loss. What we know about circular economies and service-based businesses supports the assertion that we don’t need to be creating more disposable physical products in order to create value for our clients. It doesn’t even require us to sell less stuff at all actually, just less shitty stuff.
But it does require us to change the way we go to work.
It’s not about making people want sustainable, it’s about making them behave sustainably…
I’m not pretending I know the full solution yet. If I did I would be at Davos right now, instead of here on the Lower East Side. But I have seven suggestions for what we can do to get there.
Firstly. We can categorically reject the number one point of protest from our clients: “People just don’t care.” Sorry, but we are the architects of desire. We have been creating the illusion of desirability since DeBeers invented the diamond engagement ring. Orange Juice. Cold breakfast cereal. We create categories that never existed and turn commodities — the definition of something I shouldn’t care about — into billion-dollar brands. We know exactly what levers to press to take what people do care about and weaponize it to change behavior. And we can help make this case by tapping into the reams of data we have access to.
Here’s one: an IRI meta-analysis conducted by NYU Stern found that 50% of CPG growth from 2013 to 2018 came from sustainability-marketed products.
Second, and this might sound contradictory, but bear with me: we can stop trying to make people care. Take guilt as a strategy, and throw it out the window, because it’s ineffective as a way to change long term behavior. Painting big problems robs people of their personal agency.
Don’t fall into the trap of confusing the goal with the message. It’s not about making people want sustainable, it’s about making them behave sustainably, even if the path from A to B has nothing to do with the planet and more to do with aesthetics, convenience, or cost.
Number 3. We can start talking about this with our clients, even if they’re not asking us about it. You may be a focus group of one, but you’re an influential one, in a position of power. If you care, it does matter. Be that person who keeps asking when that recycling program, that Loop partnership, that eco-friendly line extension will pilot. Eventually, it will be on their mind more often, be a more salient topic. And we all know that salience is a step on the road to sales.
Four: We can help our clients think about the system around their product. Turn what we know from “loyalty marketing” and reframe to support longer use and better end of life experiences. Help create materials that educate people about caring for their products, warranty information, the right to repair. How should they dispose of them properly? Will the company take them back? Improve your customer satisfaction while reducing impact.
Five: For those in positions of power: you can implement new metrics. Our old KPIs are part of the reason why we’re in this mess in the first place. But how can you expect people to reorient away from these metrics if they don’t know where else to focus? Set goals to bring in new projects that help the environment. State out loud to your existing clients that you want to increase the percent of your roster with a substantive sustainability strategy. Reward employees who ask for these projects.
Six: If you’re not in charge, you can find outlets to help even if your billable clients aren’t 100% on board. Get engaged with pro-bono projects that need your storytelling expertise to help them sway the world. Whether it’s big-scale political movements like XR, or simply helping a startup with smart chemists and a terrible website attract more attention.
Seven: You can take care of yourself. Don’t beat yourself up if you don’t change the world right away; don’t punish yourself with apocalypse porn. As a steward of desire, responsible for changing things for the better, your hope for the future is a resource that you have to protect.
Which is why I’m standing here saying out loud that 2030 will be the year I sell less shit than ever before. I hope.
_______
Here’s a short reading + resource list for those interested in diving deeper:
The Upcycle, by Michael Braungart & William McDonough
Thinking in Systems: A Primer, by Donella H. Meadows
Emotionally Durable Design: Objects, Experiences, & Empathy, by Jonathan Chapman
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation
How to SHIFT Consumer Behaviors to Be More Sustainable, A Literature Review & Guiding Framework
Pratt Sustainability Crash Course (2020 dates have not been posted yet, but will be in March)
the gst /gist/ is a publication of strtgst.co
