Footprint

A high-powered group of creative industry leaders recently launched a nationwide campaign to champion a more sustainable future. The event was organised by the Creative Industries Knowledge Transfer Network and sustainable development NGO Forum for the Future.

The project aims to harness the energy and inspiration of architects, filmmakers, musicians, game designers and other creative industry professionals to drive forward action on climate change. It will examine how creative businesses can use their skills and experience to help other sectors meet the challenge of sustainability as well as become more sustainable themselves.

Lord David Puttnam, filmmaker and politician, gave the keynote speech at a round-table debate hosted by Jonathon Porritt. Lord David Puttnam advocates the use of social democracy and constructive persuasion, aided by social media to spread the word.

Jonathon Porritt said, ‘The creative industries have a vital role to play. When it comes to shocking, seducing and educating, there’s no limit to the creativity that can be brought to bear on influencing people’s attitudes and behaviour.’

Franny Armstrong, founder of the 10:10 campaign (10% reduction in 2010), described 10:10’s growth with 60% of local councils, tube stations, and Oxford University now signed up. The UK premiere of Armstrong’s film, ‘The Age of Stupid’ produced just 1% of the emissions of a normal premiere; Armstrong said that ‘every film maker should do it like that and we should hold those who don’t accountable.’

Tim Brown, president of global design consultancy IDEO, insists that ‘behaviour is a contagious thing’ and we can use our creativity to persuade people to change their behaviour.

Michael Pawlyn, director at Exploration Architecture, questions the use of negative language like ‘reducing’, ‘cutting down’, to promote sustainability and urges the use of a more positive outlook with words like ‘optimising, synergising and abundance.’ Pawlyn advocates biomimicry, which means learning from natural forms, systems and processes. This means ‘radical increases in resource efficiency; shifting from a carbon to a solar economy; and moving from a linear, wasteful, polluting way of using resources to a closed-loop system.’

Chris Jordan's image of the Albatross chick's belly full of plastic that pollutes the Pacific Ocean

The vibe from the speakers and the lively debate after was so positive that it left you filled with the hope that a small group of right minded and strong willed individuals can make a difference.

More architects should join in to help drive innovation in sustainable design which could be instrumental in changing people’s behaviour. As Michael Pawlyn said, ‘To bring about change you have to be positive, so let’s be positive and design a better future.’

Find out more here.

with Tanisha Raffiuddin

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