During day two of ecoporium by Ball & Doggett, Amber Bonney, managing director of Edison Agency, and Rhys Gorgol, creative director of The Company You Keep, both spoke to a lively audience on the intersection of branding and sustainability.
On the first session, Bonney talked about a key program that Edison Agency has developed is Design For Good, which was conceived of during the Covid pandemic, and came to fruition in 2022.
Key aspects of this program are the concepts of enacting social change, having a positive effect on the environment, pursuing diversity within the industry, and developing greater opportunities for education. These goals are aligned with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
Bonney said that the ecoporium aligns with the values of her agency and wanted to highlight the principles the initiative is built upon.
The principles are to stay open and curious; to focus all your work on people product planet; that community is strength; to be generous and have a positive spirit without asking for anything in return; and to “bite big”, which means to be ambitious and not be afraid to try big things.
In the afternoon, Gorgol opened up with the point that when addressing sustainability, brands should not be doing so with the consumer in mind. “That is virtue signalling,” he said. Instead, brands need to look at why they exist, what are they doing, and how does sustainability intersect with that.
This means that a company doesn’t necessarily need to be aiming for net zero, but instead being honest and realistic about what they can do to move towards that.
A key point to remember here, is that sustainability is one aspect of various societal changes that need to be addressed in the current climate.
Gorgol went on to say that companies need to avoid the line of thinking that they need to produce as much as possible. “Produce less, but produce it well. This gets forgotten in sustainability conversations,” he said.
Having a sense of ownership for your products end-of-life was also an important point he wanted to drill home. “A disposable plastic bag in the gutter is not a good image for your brand,” he said.
