The year is full of patterns along Elk Creek, and here’s one of the highlights . Last week, a raft of four river otters passed through the rising Autumn waters, fishing and gamboling at the top of one of the rapids. Last year, we saw only one otter, running along the bank (and, if it had had company, that would not have been a “raft,” but a “romp” of otters, which is the term for describing them when on land).

Lontra canadensis are a common site along the Rogue River, into which Elk Creek empties about 2/10ths of a mile downstream from us. They don’t migrate, but they do follow food and change their dens in response to rising and falling water during the year. The rains the last few weeks raised water levels along the creek and, for a few days, the raft enjoyed catching crayfish and salmon smolt in the deep pond above the rapids that we refer to as the Swimming Hole.

They are wary of people, but we caught a bit of video. (You may need to click through to the web version of this email to see the video)

Mitch Ratcliffe 0:00
Hello, good morning, good afternoon or good evening, wherever you are on this beautiful planet of ours. Welcome to Sustainability in Your Ear. This is the podcast conversation about accelerating the transition to a sustainable, carbon-neutral society, and I'm your host, Mitch Ratcliffe. Thanks for joining the conversation today. We are going to be talking about advertising.

When most people think about advertising agencies, they think about selling things: cars, sneakers, fast food, you name it. They typically don't think about climate solutions. But our guest today, Luke Purdy, who's director of sustainability at Wieden+Kennedy, has spent the past four years trying to change that equation from the inside out. I met Luke at PNW BLD, which is the B Corp conference in Portland, Oregon, and we had such an interesting conversation that I wanted to share it with you.

Luke came up through the ranks at Wieden+Kennedy, one of the world's most influential creative agencies. It's the shop behind Nike's JUST DO IT campaign and countless others that have shaped our culture. And after 13 years of working on major accounts like Nike and Corona, as well as helping transform Danish Oil and Natural Gas into Ørsted, one of the world's leading renewable energy companies, he did something unusual. Luke wrote his dream job description, and then he asked to become the agency's first director of sustainability. Wieden+Kennedy gave him the job, and it was a first in the industry. And in 2023, the agency became the first global advertising agency network to achieve B Corp certification across all nine offices in seven countries.

So it's a fascinating contradiction. The advertising industry has spent a century, even more, perfecting the art of making people want more—more products, more consumption, more stuff. And now agencies are being asked to help sustainability challenges while still growing their clients' businesses. Some see this as hypocrisy, but Luke sees it as an opportunity for leverage. With brands spending over $700 billion annually on advertising worldwide, the messages that agencies craft shape not just what people buy, but how they think about consumption itself.

And the landscape is shifting. Requests for proposals now routinely ask agencies about their B Corp status, their carbon emissions measurement activities, and sustainability certifications. Clients also want to know not just if an agency can sell products, but if it can help them navigate the transition to a low-carbon economy without alienating consumers who are exhausted by greenwashing.

Meanwhile, sustainability departments at major corporations often sit in silos, disconnected from marketing teams and brand strategy. And this is where Luke operates, helping connect those impact dots and showing that sustainability isn't a compliance department—it's a brand opportunity.

But of course, there are challenges. Luke runs a department of one, trying to influence 10 global offices. But he reports to the CFO, not the CMO, which frames sustainability as a business value proposition instead of a cost center. He's implemented a carbon removal program that puts a price on carbon emissions for every client video shoot, and he's navigating thorny questions about which clients agencies should work with. Wieden+Kennedy works with automotive giants and Formula One alongside renewable energy companies, arguing that helping any company move in the right direction is better than refusing to engage.

So we're going to talk with Luke about whether advertising agencies can truly influence their clients towards sustainability, how he sold his role internally, and the gap between B Corp values and day-to-day client work, as well as what he's learned about driving change in an industry built on creativity rather than compliance. You can learn more about Wieden+Kennedy at wk.com—that's just wk.com. So let's find out if the industry that taught the world to consume can help us learn to do it more responsibly. We'll find out right after this quick commercial break.

Welcome to the show, Luke. How you doing today?

[COMMERCIAL BREAK]

Luke Purdy 4:21
I'm doing great. Thanks for having me.

Mitch Ratcliffe 4:24
Well, thank you for joining us. We met and had an interesting conversation at Pacific Northwest BLD Conference, the B Leadership Conference, and I really wanted to get you on to talk about what you shared with me that day. And I gave a little bit of a summary of your job in the introduction to this interview. But could you tell me how you describe what you do to your colleagues and to your mom?

Luke Purdy 4:44
Yeah, definitely different descriptions, I would say, to my colleagues. And funny enough, they do ask, "What is it you do?" Because it's a job that hasn't existed before and kind of sits outside a lot of the kind of day-to-day general normal operations of Wieden+Kennedy, I would say. But no, I let them know there's the operational side of things, where we talk about working with our emissions, and then there is the kind of culture side of things, and that is working with our clients and business strategy, bringing in new business that is more impact-focused, and just general improvements to the business that is in line with our B Corp certification.

And when I speak with my mother about what I do, I generally just say, "I'm trying to make the company more sustainable."

Mitch Ratcliffe 5:42
And she understands that?

Luke Purdy 5:44
Well, she doesn't understand all of the production stuff and the new business and the inner workings of all of the other aspects of it—HR and things like that. So I generally give her a very top-line.

Mitch Ratcliffe 6:01
I know the experience, because my mother has never understood what I've done. You've been working for 13 years as a group brand director on major accounts like Nike, Ørsted, and Corona. Pretty sexy work in terms of the advertising industry. What was the moment, or was there a project that made you realize you wanted to shift your career focus to sustainability?

Luke Purdy 6:22
You know, there's been a few moments in time, and I would say the very earliest one was actually in the first maybe two years of my career, when I was working in Portland at our Wieden+Kennedy office there—campaign for Coca-Cola, and it was called "America the Beautiful." And we went around the US and filmed people, real stories of real Americans, and they sung "America the Beautiful" in their native language. And so we strung this together, very beautiful. And it was just, you know, a commentary on the beauty of America and diversity and how that makes us stronger, and we aired it at the Super Bowl, and it just kind of took over culture.

And it was in the news cycle for two weeks following the Super Bowl, which is pretty unheard of. It was being talked about on The Daily Show and all over the place and created a real conversation. And I think that happened so early on in my career, and I saw, "Wow, okay, you can say something with advertising, and it can really start a conversation that's more on the social side."

And then, yeah, I mean, through environmental things, I've had the pleasure of launching the Ørsted brand as they went from Danish Oil and Natural Gas. And that was a very, very long, intensive process of convincing their shareholders, their stakeholders, government, consumers, everybody of, you know, "This is a new business that hasn't existed in the past," and creating that identity and how much communications drives a business forward to meet their goals.

And, you know, all credit to the leadership of Ørsted for having very ambitious goals, because they wanted to flip the fraction from 85% fossil fuels to 85% renewables. And so they had the vision. They knew how to do it, and we came with the brand strategy, with the communications, and they were able to achieve their transition in under a decade. And they were named the most sustainable company in the world in 2022. And there's a lot of lessons from that, and it was a pleasure to be a part of that. And I think it just filled me with so much pride and energy that, you know, as much as I love working on Nike briefs, have worked on many great projects, got to meet a lot of amazing athletes, but working on the green energy stuff—that was where I got really, really energized.

Mitch Ratcliffe 9:04
That's interesting, because what you're describing is the advertising made a promise that Ørsted actually kept. And in many cases, we assume that advertising makes false promises. Wieden+Kennedy's always been well known for being about authentic messages. Is what you experienced with Ørsted possible with every company?

Luke Purdy 9:26
It's sadly not. I think the thing is, with Ørsted, is that from the top to the bottom, the leaders, everyone believed in it, and the leadership is the one who was driving it. And I think where you can get into trouble with certain brands is when leadership doesn't believe in it. Maybe it's a small sustainability team initiative that improves the product by 5% or 10%, and then the company wants to go out and say, "Hey, we're green. Look at this." And that's where you can get into trouble.

And so, yes, I've always made sure we didn't get kind of sucked into those briefs. Because, you know, I think in my experience with brand-side people who do bring you those briefs, they don't do it with ill intention. They don't think they're deceiving. But what happens is they don't ask enough questions or the right questions, and so they don't actually realize what's happening.

And then when you start to dig deeper, and that's what Wieden+Kennedy's always been very good at, is really trying to dig to the truth of what we want to talk about, what the brand wants to talk about, what the product truth is. And so when we get the initial brief from a client, it's never enough for us. We always have 50 more questions we want to ask them and really dig in. And so I think that alone has just helped us avoid a lot of greenwashing issues.

Mitch Ratcliffe 10:59
You have basically a first-of-its-kind role in a global agency as the sustainability lead. What was the pitch that you made to your leadership focused on? How did you make the case for this job?

Luke Purdy 11:15
Yeah, well, I would say first it kind of came because we went through the B Corp process, and that is something that I led. And as a company, I mean, I've been at Wieden+Kennedy for a long time, and I would say everyone who works at Wieden+Kennedy is very passionate and believes in the company and believes we're the best and wants to be the best. And so, you know, we have that belief. And then you go through an audit, and it confirms some of the beliefs—yeah, we're really good in these areas—but it also shows you, "Hey, we're not so good in these other areas."

And so I took the learnings from that and kind of crafted this role and said, "Hey, we were a great company, but we could be even better." And in a highly, highly competitive industry like advertising, you're only as good as your last campaign, and you have to always have creative output. You always have to have good benefits. You always have to have a great workplace that people want to come to. But there's a lot of other things that start to separate you. And one is a B Corp certification. Another one is being more environmentally responsible, which is something that wasn't really, at the time—2020, 2021, when I wrote my job—wasn't really something people were thinking about. And even now, I think it's just kind of coming around a bit more. So we were on the front foot.

And I would say a big difference in my pitch compared to perhaps how some people approach it is, I've found there's plenty of passionate people in the advertising industry and throughout Wieden+Kennedy, and at times they will shout from maybe a more activist point of view, "We shouldn't do that. We can't be doing this. Why are we doing that?" And it's a—you know, it's okay. I think it's important to have those voices just to start those conversations and make sure we are being thoughtful. But how I approached it was directly to the president of the office, saying, "I can help you do your job. I can make our employees happier. I can help attract new talent. I can help attract new business. I can help make the company better by doing all of these things."

And I think it's just the framing into more of a business case. And, you know, there's a lot of talk about return on investment with sustainability, and it can be hard to quantify, but there is enough rationale behind it. And I think any leader who understands the business landscape and the need to be a responsible company in today's time—it was a somewhat of an easy sell.

Mitch Ratcliffe 14:14
Well, and I think this is the right position within the company. You report to the CFO, not the chief marketing officer or the chief operating officer, and that ties your work to financial outcomes. You just talked about framing sustainability as more than just compliance or a values exercise—it has real business impact. What does the CFO care about? What metrics do they look at when they measure your performance?

Luke Purdy 14:41
I would say, you know, where the CFO is good is they try to kind of steer some of the resources away from compliance, trying to make compliance—obviously, it's something we have to do, and it is very important—but not over-investing in compliance, and instead shifting what we are investing into sustainability, into culture-driving initiatives. So that could be training for all of our employees, that could be new processes, yeah, different tools, things like that.

And so I agree with that, and I find that as much as reporting and compliance is important for big companies, and it has kind of driven action for people to kind of get at least a baseline foundational setup within sustainability, it is not what is going to change the business. What does, I think, culture does. And I think when I—so when I wrote my job, I put, "My mission is to make sustainable behavior a company value."

And Wieden+Kennedy has a lot of values. We're very creative-first, we're very social impact-focused. And I think advertising leans into the human stories. And so it makes sense. And, you know, Dan Wieden was a champion of diversity, inclusion concepts in the '90s, well before it was kind of more mainstreamed. But I would argue we don't have sustainability as a core value, and some people care about it, but it needs to be something that's entrenched in every department. Everyone thinks about it in this way.

And so that is my mission, and I've framed it in the way to the CFO that once sustainable behavior becomes a company value, it will begin to drive business value.

Mitch Ratcliffe 17:04
What you're describing—culture is behavior at scale, and if you're going to change your behavior, you have to have a reason for doing so. And clearly, it's the values that drive that, but then all of the business impact that you're describing makes the case and reinforces and drives further investment in being more sustainable. So you have the opportunity to create a virtuous circle.

You've lived in Amsterdam for 11 years, even became a Dutch citizen recently. How is being based there in Europe, more generally, but more specifically, in a city that is always conscious of the fact it could be flooded at any time, been important to shape your approach to sustainability?

Luke Purdy 17:47
Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I think Europe in general has a more environmental-first mindset, and even within Europe, the Netherlands does because of its cycling culture and Amsterdam in particular. And so, you know, I haven't owned a car in 11 years. I take the train often to travel. Obviously, cycling to work every single day. And renewable energy is plentiful and easy. You see windmills off the coast everywhere. You see solar everywhere. Eating vegan or organic or cleanly is very easy, and it's just kind of—it's not seen as a thing you're choosing specifically. It's just kind of how life is set up around here.

And so in general, I think when I talk to people here, they get it, and sustainable themes are more integrated into business. Products are being developed in a certain way. The circular economy, or donut economics, is something that generated first here in Amsterdam. So a lot of these concepts of, "How do you get businesses to have a lower impact on the planet?" is kind of native to the thinking here, where I would say in the United States, it's very much a more socially minded place. And it does, and it does lead, probably the planet on social issues, whereas Europe, I think, leads more on the environmental issues.

Mitch Ratcliffe 19:30
So you have case studies you can point to, to say, "I can see this in my neighborhood." Does that help you evangelize the idea to American partners?

Luke Purdy 19:40
I don't know if it helps me, but yeah, I mean, I suppose I can give examples. I can definitely give a lot of examples. And I think, well, what I've learned in my position is that things that I implement, let's say, here or in our London office, are maybe sometimes much easier than implementing in our Tokyo office or in our New York office. And that can just be down to availability, for example.

You know, our London and Amsterdam offices run on renewable energy, and I've been trying to make that happen in Tokyo, but in Tokyo, everyone has only one energy operator, and they don't offer renewable, so it's not really an option yet. So I assume, hopefully in the near future, it will be, because everything is going that way, but there are some limitations to it.

But I do think there is—right at our doorstep, there is a lot of innovation in the product space and in the repair space. And so that is really interesting to see those concepts being existing, you know, in my day-to-day life, and then suggesting to clients, "Hey, I see how this works, and here's how it can work."

Mitch Ratcliffe 20:56
We've laid out a global story, and there's a lot to dig into, but we need to take a quick commercial break. Folks, we're going to be right back. Stay tuned.

[COMMERCIAL BREAK]

Welcome back to Sustainability in Your Ear. We're going to get back to the conversation with Luke Purdy. He's director of sustainability at the global creative agency Wieden+Kennedy.

Luke, Wieden+Kennedy achieved B Corp status a couple of years ago, but you told me that you haven't implemented what you described as a ruthless filter for what kind of clients that you'll do work with. And you mentioned Ørsted, which is a really incredible story of a transition for a fossil fuel company. But is there a line that the organization won't cross regarding what a company does or does not do, or is it simply a matter of encouraging or going in the right direction there?

Luke Purdy 21:51
There is a line. I think with Ørsted, when they came to us, they were an energy provider that was predominantly run on fossil fuels. But when they presented what they wanted, and that was to, you know, completely shift to renewables, create a new brand—that was really exciting. And so we wanted to help them with that transition.

However, if Shell comes and knocks on our door and says, "Hey, we want to talk about our new wind power farm," and we know that that is 1% of their budget, and the other 99% is going towards more exploration of new drilling and fossil fuels, of course, we're going to say no to that. So we do our research.

And I would say, maybe it's too simple, but, you know, Wieden+Kennedy is somewhat of a casual place that is flat in its hierarchy, and the people have a voice. And so when the leadership team says, "Hey, we're gonna bring, we're gonna pitch for this new business," if people speak up and say, "I'm not going to work on that," then that's the signal that, "Okay, maybe this isn't the right company to work with," and generally, we'll walk away.

So there's no real criteria saying we will work with this industry, we won't work with that industry. I think oil and gas is one that's pretty clear that, you know, we're not going to touch unless there's a real transformation story there, like an Ørsted. But everything else, I think it's down to, "What do our people want to work on? What would get them excited?" And for Wieden+Kennedy, as I said, it being kind of a creative-first company, it's, "Is it a creative opportunity, and can we make a real impact with this company?"

Mitch Ratcliffe 23:48
So have there been moments where you found with an existing client that they were doing something—and I'll use an example that sort of builds on what you suggested, which is a phone manufacturer who says, "Well, we've got this one chip that's now recycled." That one chip is less than 1% of the bill of materials of that, but they want to pitch their new green initiative. Have you had those kinds of conversations, and how would you introduce the challenge that that's greenwashing?

Luke Purdy 24:19
We have had this challenge. And I won't name the brand, but it was a brand where we had many different projects with them in a couple offices, and they really wanted to talk about, kind of exactly what you're explaining, just a small incremental, you know, use of some recycled plastic. And of course, they wanted to say, "Oh, we're saving the oceans because we're getting some plastic out of the ocean, and this is a green product."

And we kind of gently told them, "Look, this is kind of—well, this is misleading washing. This isn't, you know, this is an over-claim." I think it's great that you are investing in this and that you're starting to implement these types of things in your product, but we would recommend that you do not outwardly communicate this, because it is greenwashing. And so we declined the brief, and we did it very respectfully, and they ended up going and making it with another agency, and we saw it out there, and it was pretty much exactly as they had wanted it to look and sound.

And it was at a time, too, where I think a lot of brands were going out and saying, "Here's our pledge," and a lot of cliche sayings of, "Let's make the world a better place," "Together, we can make the change we want to see." And it was, yeah, I don't think it had much impact, but it was a shame to see it out there. And we do try to always advise people, because, you know, we, as Wieden+Kennedy, we're guardians of the brand, and we want to see the brand do well and do good in the world. And when we—so we want to steer them in the right direction. When we see they're a bit lost, we make sure we let them know.

Mitch Ratcliffe 26:17
You need them to match the words with the actions that are going to follow through on the promise. And one of the ways that you've done that is introduced this carbon-focused carbon removal program, so you put a cost on the emissions associated with any client video shoots. How does that change the conversation with your production teams and clients? Are they pushing back on the added cost and complexity, or did they embrace it?

Luke Purdy 26:42
Most of them have embraced it. I would say it's rare—it has happened where a cost controller goes through and they're slashing line items, and that's one that goes—but generally speaking, they've embraced it. And actually, some have really, really liked it. For example, Nike, who's a longtime client of ours, 42 years plus. They love it so much they want to integrate it into the organization and to all of their shoots, whether it's a Wieden+Kennedy shoot or not. And so I've been talking with them about that. Of course, that's going to be a long, complex process, but that's real impact, because that is, you know, getting it to a global organization.

And ultimately, production budgets are, you know, there's a lot of expenditure, and this is quite a small line item that actually has quite a big impact. And so it's easy to justify, accountability. And I would say that also, the culture in the industry is shifting. You know, some awards, like Cannes, is actually asking for emissions reports from the campaigns. And so this is just kind of being able to show up and say, "Look, we did it as responsibly as we could have."

And, you know, no shoot is green—like, let's be honest, you're flying a lot of people to a place, you're building a set, you're feeding 100 people—but there's a lot you can do to minimize the impact as much as possible. And I think as a whole, the industry has caught up. And when we first started doing it, there was maybe a couple production companies who were already offering more sustainable ways of doing productions. And nowadays it's—you approach everyone kind of with a bid letter saying, "Hey, these are our expectations. You know, no single-use plastic on set. Let's try to use electric generators. Let's use EVs. Let's try to eat vegetarian or vegan," which kind of depends on which country you're in. Sometimes that's a complete sin if you're not feeding people meat. But yeah, it's a bit easier now of a conversation than I think it was even a few years ago.

Mitch Ratcliffe 29:07
It seems, too, like the sustainability conversation in advertising is a lot easier than it was. You explained to me when we were talking before about the Ford EV work that the Wieden+Kennedy team in the UK was doing, and they didn't have to tell people an electric car is good for the planet, because, as you said, people already know that. So how is the creative approach to sustainable product storytelling evolved since you took this role?

Luke Purdy 29:33
Yeah, I think, you know, culturally, people are more aware and consumers are smart. They're educated, and so they can spot greenwashing from a mile away. And I think the way things used to be done, the kind of tropes of, "Let's see someone walking in a green field," or green leaves or fresh breeze, that kind of stuff—it just doesn't connect with people.

And ultimately, with any product, service, brand, you're not going to get people to love you by listing every feature of your sneaker or listing every green claim behind your product. You're going to get people to love you when you tell them a joke, when you connect with them emotionally because you have an interesting insider story, make them think differently. And so I think that's really important to keep in mind, and that in the end, environmental advertising is no different than non-environmental advertising. You need to entertain people.

Mitch Ratcliffe 30:48
And within agencies, do you find that sustainability is becoming a table-stakes competence in order to be competitive when pitching client work?

Luke Purdy 30:56
Yeah, definitely. So in new business, more and more we're seeing at the RFP stage, "What are your credentials? What certifications do you have? What are your emissions? Do you have science-based targets?" So kind of the more disclosing of our credentials. But then in terms of actually communicating and kind of selling products that are more environmentally focused, yeah, I've absolutely gotten feedback from clients saying, "We want to make sure you guys get it, because we've worked with agencies that fall into the tropes of, 'Let's put green leaves on things,' and we don't want that."

And so, yeah, it's good to kind of be able to come into the room and have a body of work that shows, "Yeah, we work across industries." And, you know, I think Wieden+Kennedy's always been about getting to the truth of a brand and a product, and entertaining people. And so, like I said, it's no different whether we're doing environmental work or not. We kind of want to set out to make something that is going to make people smile, laugh, cry, entertain them.

Mitch Ratcliffe 32:14
You also told me that internally, Wieden+Kennedy employees are asking about AI's—artificial intelligence's—environmental impact. And of course, we're using a lot more of it in creative undertakings. How do you approach that tension around its both environmental and social impact? When you spend money on AI, you're reinforcing the industry's value proposition. What do we need to know about that when we talk with people inside our companies about the use of AI?

Luke Purdy 32:41
Yeah, you know, there's not a straightforward answer, in the sense that we have the solution. I think the best answer I can give is that it's about energy supply, and humans are using more and more energy every single year, and AI is just the next thing that is consuming a lot of energy. It's consuming a lot of water, and it's very well documented. And so there does need to be solutions in place, and those solutions are going to come from the energy providers.

I think nuclear is something that's kind of coming back into fashion and actually is being paraded as an answer. Of course, renewables, but clean energy, abundant clean energy, is what's going to be needed to fuel AI. And that said, you know, we try to say, "Look, use AI as a creative partner to help you concept things, but also don't rely on it too heavily for everything. Still use your skills that you have."

And, yeah, so it's a tool to be used. But we're not gonna—we're not going to gamble our whole company on the future of AI, necessarily.

Mitch Ratcliffe 34:05
Well, it's very good at telling stories that other people have told before, but not necessarily new stories, which is really what your forte is. And so I agree that's the right way to think about it. It is a tool. It is not superseding human intelligence, as you mentioned.

You know, there's some very critical technology subject to a lot of criticism, like nuclear, being pitched as solutions to this problem. You know, you've been in this job four years. We're in a very vexed environment for talking about climate right now. Are you more optimistic or frustrated about the advertising industry's ability to make meaningful change on climate and sustainability, given where we are right now as a global society?

Luke Purdy 34:51
It probably depends which market I'm in, since I'm in a global role. Of course, I think in the US, what's going on right now with the current administration, people are more careful and don't want to outwardly be parading as environmentally friendly. But behind the scenes, everyone is still doing the work. You know, I participate in a lot of conferences and talk to a lot of other CSOs, and everyone is maintaining the same level of spending or increasing spending. They're maintaining the same goals. They're not slowing down.

Because ultimately, businesses have probably been around 50 years, 100 years, 150 years, and they want to be around for another 150 years, and so they supersede the political cycle. And sustainability supersedes the political cycle. So it, you know, I think, unfortunately, we can't get around it—it does have sway. It might slow some things down, but ultimately, we've already hit that tipping point. Renewables are cheaper. Innovation is there. People want this. And so the market's going to speak for itself.

And I think the role of advertising isn't necessarily to create a new technology. That's the role of the company to do. But the role of advertising is to change consumer behavior and to make things desirable. And so we can make a product desirable, but we can make solutions desirable. And, you know, I would say advertising has good form in this area, even when you just look at campaigns around anti-smoking or anti-drug campaigns, or long ago, you know, wearing your seatbelt or eating your five servings of vegetables and fruits a day. These are positive messages for consumers that spread awareness of, "Oh, yeah, okay, these are the harms of smoking." And, you know, with regulation and other things, it has kind of plunged smokers.

So I think that's just one example, but that's where, yeah, we're hungry for more and more of those kinds of opportunities to tell those stories.

Mitch Ratcliffe 37:15
Well, and as you said earlier, culture is about behavior at scale, and you have this lever to change behavior, which is so important. In addition to the slogans you mentioned, "cooking with gas" is another one which we still use and reinforces the value of gas when we reflexively state this comment from a 1960s advertisement.

When you look at where we are today, what are the three or four things that you're focused on changing in the way that advertising communicates about our relationship with nature?

Luke Purdy 37:54
I think that's a very good question. Three or four things. One, I think it's important that people realize they are nature, they're connected to nature, and that we're not separate from it. And so every product has an impact. And, you know, actually, sometimes I speak with the folks at Patagonia, and I've seen them at conferences, and they have kind of a good rule of thumb of just—they want to talk about things after they've done them and achieved them, but they don't ever want to kind of go out and parade and say, "We're so sustainable," because they know every product they create actually has an impact, right? Sure.

So that's probably one—just kind of understanding that and trying to be more mindful about consumption, trying to avoid fast fashion, you know, understanding that where your credit card goes is the future you're buying. And so if you buy from a company that makes really well-made products really mindfully, then that's where the future is going to go. If you just continue to buy from the fast fashion and the cheap things, then that's the future we're looking at. So the money talks.

What else? Let me think. The third one I would say is repair. And repair is something that exists in some industries and has for a long time. And we talk about the circular economy and how it's a new concept, but it's actually been around for a long time. Looking at the auto industry, when you buy a car, if the engine stops working, you don't just throw the car away. You get a new engine put in, or you change the tires, or etc. You resell the car to someone. It can be resold multiple times. And of course, this is a big-ticket item, so it's not something you would often throw away. But at the same time, the ecosystem exists that all of these shops have the parts. There's a whole system to buy parts.

But that same system doesn't exist, let's say, for phones. Why, when my iPhone battery starts to run so low, can I not put a new battery in it? Instead, it kind of forces me to have to buy a new phone. So I think popularizing repair, and same with clothing, you know, of course, making sure that clothes can be recycled and vintage clothes, and all of those trends are becoming more and more popular.

Mitch Ratcliffe 40:33
And do you see the service experience as potentially the way to extend the brand relationship over the course of the life of a product, but also the life of an individual? Because they become reliant on the products from specific companies, that service relationship could raise the bar and provide a new channel for advertising.

Luke Purdy 40:54
Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, I mean, every brand wants more engagement with their consumers. And so offering repair services and engaging with your consumers in a more meaningful way is a great thing to invest in and to do. And ultimately, it builds more love and more connection with you and your customers. So this is a very positive thing for the company, for the customer, for the planet. It's really a win-win in so many ways.

And then lastly, a fourth point is maybe just a more general point on popularizing more sustainable behaviors. And this can be done in smaller ways. Let's say showing people taking public transit or using a reusable water bottle or things like that. Or just kind of, you know, when you—let's say you're selling a grill, a backyard grill. You don't have to show people throwing down a big steak on the grill. You could show people grilling vegetables, eating vegan, vegetarian. So I think it's just kind of making these types of decisions normalized.

Mitch Ratcliffe 42:13
Luke, this has been a really great conversation. How can folks track what Wieden+Kennedy is doing?

Luke Purdy 42:18
Well, we are pretty active on Instagram, I would say. Yeah, we have a profile for pretty much every single office, obviously our website. But ultimately, just, you know, we're probably on your phone, on your computer, on your TV. We're everywhere with the brands that we work with, and you may not realize that. But yeah, we've got a lot of work out there in the world. But yeah, if you want to keep tabs, I'd say Instagram is probably where to find our work.

Mitch Ratcliffe 42:46
Thanks very much for your time today, Luke. It's been great. Yeah, thank you, Mitch. It's been a good conversation.

[COMMERCIAL BREAK]

Welcome back to Sustainability in Your Ear. You've been listening to my conversation with Luke Purdy. He's director of sustainability at Wieden+Kennedy, the advertising agency behind Nike's JUST DO IT campaign and many more very recognizable messages that you've seen on TV, heard on the radio, or read in the newspaper, if you still read a newspaper. You can learn more about Wieden+Kennedy and its B Corp and sustainability efforts at wk.com. WK is just the two letters, no space, no dash—wk.com.

Luke's comment that Wieden+Kennedy digs deeply into the stories its clients want to tell to deliver big, authentic campaigns reflects the challenge that I think the sustainability movement faces today. We need to get past focusing on simple messages, like focusing solely on carbon, to understand and address every facet of the polycrisis. And that includes not just the climate crisis, but the loss of biosphere integrity, land system change, freshwater scarcity, ocean acidification, ozone depletion, and disrupted biogeochemical flows that are undermining nature at the planetary level.

Oh, and by the way, then there's the advance of authoritarianism around the globe. We've got plenty of problems to solve, as humans always have. And yet here we are, still trying to solve them, even as they get more complex, as our society gets more complex, too.

Through an honest confrontation with reality, we can discover opportunities to reverse the damage done to the planet, to society, while bringing prosperity to every human community. And to do so, we need honest stories about government policy, the products and services delivered by companies, and our choices as citizens and as consumers. But at least here in the United States, that debate is currently taking the form of shouting louder than the opposition, often lying more energetically instead of laying out the case for our positions.

And what does an ad agency tell us about the potential for progress and turning back the polycrisis? Well, Luke's work at Wieden+Kennedy provides a scale on which better decisions can be weighed, because the consequences of those decisions are fully accounted for, such as by measuring every pound of carbon emitted by a video shoot when you're making a television commercial. I know—there I go again with carbon—but it is important. And like Wieden+Kennedy, which chooses clients based on their commitment to real change, we can make a difference every time we open our wallet.

Luke is right. When we compromise our concern for the environment, we vote for more environmental damage. If you don't buy less or purchase sustainable products when you do shop, you won't get more sustainable options in the future. And like a company trying to become more environmentally responsible, we need to recognize that progress isn't judged against perfection. It's measured in small steps that move us toward better results.

And it's encouraging to see an advertising professional embracing sustainability, B Corporation values, and deliberate choices about which stories they will tell in support of a restored environment. Only a few other agencies have taken the steps that Wieden+Kennedy has. But as I said, small steps can start a parade, and the corporate sustainability parade is picking up new marchers every day.

And I hope you'll help us take the next step on Sustainability in Your Ear. We've got more than 500 shows to share with others, so please take a look and write a review on your favorite podcast platform. That will help your neighbors find us. Because, folks, you are the amplifiers that can spread more ideas to create less waste.

Please tell your friends, family, co-workers, the people you meet on the street that they can find Sustainability in Your Ear on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Audible, and other purveyors of podcast goodness—whatever they prefer. Have them stop by and check out this podcast.

Thanks for your support. I'm Mitch Ratcliffe. This is Sustainability in Your Ear, and we will be back with another innovator interview soon. In the meantime, folks, take care of yourself, take care of one another, and let's all take care of this beautiful planet of ours. Have a green day, you.

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