The artistic collective Urge goals to assist organizations in combating local weather change
Urge is a new creative collective formed to help organizations "create and implement radical responses to the climate emergency". Its founders include designers Ella Doran and Harry Pearce, creative director Faizia Khan, architect Michael Pawlyn, filmmaker Dougal Wilson and ex-CR editor Patrick Burgoyne.
CR spoke with three other founders – designer Sophie Thomas and strategists Federico Gaggio and John Grant – about the group's goals and the parallels between redirecting a company to become sustainable and the process of digital transformation.
CR: What is the idea behind Urge and how did the group come together?
John Grant: I think we are at a tipping point where businesses of all sizes have woken up to a climate and environmental emergency and are making ambitious and proportionate commitments to science-based goals or going net-zero. I see Urge as a kind of creative Avengers Assemble! That is the requirement for me. Individually, I have a counseling practice, as do some of the others, but the idea of Avengers Assemble is that this is too big and urgent to continue playing around on the sidelines. When we come together, we can achieve more than we can as individuals. We don't want to be a think tank. We want to contribute to efforts that move the needle in this crisis.
Sophie Thomas: John and I have been talking about design's response to sustainability and climate change for a good decade, but I think the turning point for Urge was the calls to action from people like Greta Thunberg and the explanations of a climate emergency that came out. A lot of people wake up to the fact that this stuff is happening and we're reaching certain points of no return. The question was, how do we use our creativity and imagination to really change our way of life and our planetary behavior and to enable us as designers to make effective changes.
When we come together, we can achieve more than we can as individuals. We don't want to be a think tank. We want to contribute to efforts that move the needle
Federico Gaggio: I recently met John at an event at the RSA. The conversation was the usual about the role of purpose in brands and strategy, and John and I were both frustrated that these debates didn't really examine the systemic nature of these issues. That was around the time Extinction Rebellion was writing their letter to the advertising industry and we were talking about how they, as communicators, have the power to inspire people and change mindsets in meaningful ways.
So urge is a way to unite in a shared vision that enables us to work in ways that we individually cannot. We will use creativity and design to develop radical responses to the climate emergency. As thinkers, designers and creators, we take responsibility for what we put into the world and put our talent and know-how at the service of communities, companies and organizations that take responsibility for their effects and choose their actions align with their beliefs and align sustainability commitments with business strategies and practices.
ST: We all need to get active and active – we've talked enough. We currently have a core founding group, but we will be growing the collective to include people with the different experiences and backgrounds that we need to create the responses needed for climate action.
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FG: And I think that's also what makes it exciting to bring a diverse group like this together, because we can offer companies new perspectives and ways to invent new solutions and then develop prototype solutions that work with the people in the industry and work together in their organizations. We don't talk about it, we do it. The point is no longer to set off the alarm – the alarm is already ringing loudly. Now it's about turning things into real change.
JG: I think there are quite a few consultants in the world who can tell you what your sustainability problems are, but not necessarily help with the creative leaps it takes to find a solution or put that solution into practice to implement. That is the void we are closing.
CR: What projects do you think Urge is working on?
ST: One thing that we definitely won't accept is greenwash projects that are just messing around on the margins. We look for companies that have made a commitment to go carbon free, for example, and we help them understand how this is done in practice. We'll walk you through each step and work with your teams to help you do this. We want to create a space where we can involve teams from different companies to help them really solve some of the big problems and help them with new ideas or to understand where the hotspots are in their companies.
JG: I think we can make the most impact either in big organizations that have made commitments and say, "Well, now what?" And help them find the way forward, or work with the disruptors who may be ousting these companies and who need to grow as quickly as possible.
CR: You said Urge should play a role in design education – in what way?
ST: I am seriously concerned about the state of the design education sector at the moment, partly because of the funding and impact of Covid, partly because, although many are pushing, we still don't see design for sustainability embedded in every single design school curriculum. Our goal is to be open source and to share our experiences with the education sector through briefings and activities. Our first step will be to build an advisory board exclusively with the generation still in school who are interested in design and passionate about the planet. Young people have a strong moral compass and we want to help give them the opportunity to incorporate this into their future careers.
FG: It's about learning how to ask questions and how to ask better questions and find better answers. That's part of the change the education side of Urge has to look for: How are you changing the mindset about education? Ken Robinson was famous for education stealing your creativity.
We don't talk about it, we do it. The point is no longer to set off the alarm – the alarm is already ringing loudly. It's about turning things into real change
ST: A discussion in a recent panel discussion on built-in contamination raised the question of how parts of the branding logo or marketing can often be detrimental to how end-of-life packaging is recycled or reused. These “brand-critical” elements such as film blocking, color in the material or plastic films are often described as non-negotiable and of crucial importance for the brand. I wonder when this will be flipped so that a designer can override such decisions with an option that is "planet critical". This whole debate is about how we prioritize product sales beyond the health of the planets and ultimately beyond our health. It shouldn't be like that, for me it's a failure of the imagination. Waste is a design flaw.
JG: The expression "paradigm shift" comes from a book by Thomas Kuhn. It examined the structure of scientific revolutions and indicated that historically all paradigm shifters were rather young or new in one area or both: the old game becomes untenable and unplayable. But the old professors will keep playing it, just as the old designers will keep making plastic shampoo bottles because tradition and culture are inherently conservative and people who made it by the rules of the old game will keep playing it. The new generation has the opportunity to accelerate change and we have seen in all social values surveys around the world that the younger generation is extremely motivating not only on climate change but also on diversity and other issues is, and you see it all over the world. But they are vulnerable and go through an educational system and set of institutions that often tell them to put aside their "childish, naive" political views and adjust in order to get a job.
CR: What conditions must exist within an organization to make a real change in terms of sustainability – to really address these issues on more than just a very superficial level of greenwashing?
JG: I think the word that is often used to describe these conditions is "realization". Someone – sometimes the CEO, sometimes the sustainability director – someone with a lot of influence over the organization understood the situation and saw what needs to change. That's exactly what happened with digital – in the 90s a new generation of executives came through who realized that the world was going to be digital, that every company was going to be a software company. They realized that there would be an inevitable transition to a new digital economy, and the choice was whether to lead the way or stand against the tide like King Canute and see how to do it. Now the same thing is happening with sustainability.
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This also happens in a context in which big investors tell every company to take care of it and that there are enormous negative consequences if they do not decarbonise their balance sheets and do not move into green and thriving future markets. That pressure has increased over 20 years, but it seems to have reached a tipping point right now.
The other thing that has changed is public attitudes. Fifteen years ago almost as many people around the world were worried or very concerned about climate change as there are today, but we have seen the number of people double who say this affects me personally. For example, if you live within 60 miles of an American coastline, you would very much like to say that this affects me personally because you've flooded cities and saw forests on fire and it's really hard to ignore.
The other thing that has changed is public attitudes. We have seen the number of people saying that this affects me personally has doubled
The three of us recently met the CEO of a FTSE 250 company. I was a little confused as to why he wanted to meet us because this was a large, traditional agribusiness. He said, "Well, I have two Gretas at home – my daughters – and they ask me every day what I do with them." So I think that the realization also comes from these kinds of sources. However, when you see an organization moving fast in a really good way, it can't just be down to a leader – there needs to be a culture to drive it forward.
ST: It's like a sandwich of executives and people who work in the organization and really want to do something. When the two forces come together in some kind of perfect storm, action can be got. As an example from a materials perspective, we know that there are certain materials that are under pressure as we have an increasing demand for them, but we have a limited supply of resources. If you carry on as usual with these raw materials that go into your product, you will end up having absolutely no profit because they are so expensive and in such demand in the market. So, from a business perspective, there is an additional realization that things cannot go on as they are. And more and more employees want to work in places that take the impact on the planet into account and act. Add new regulations that increasingly come into play. All of this pulls a company towards a more resilient and therefore more sustainable business.
FG: I think it's really a question of leadership – you need someone at the top who really makes a commitment. And then you need the entire organization to get involved. In this sense, the parallel to digital transformation makes sense, as it is an organization-wide effort that goes through a series of behavioral and cultural changes. We want to apply the methodology of digital transformation to sustainability.
urgcollective.com