Paddy is a change maker working with and advising organisations, funders and campaigns. In 2020 he co-founded Stories For Life and the Reset Narratives Community, and spent two years working with the UNFCCC Climate Champions for COP26, after a decade as a brand strategist, innovation consultant and market researcher.
What does ‘sustainability’ mean to you?
‘Sustainability’ should mean ‘working and living in a way that maintains a liveable, living world’.
The focus should be on creating the conditions needed for a liveable, living world to be possible, followed by a focus on what that means for business. But businesses typically prioritise their business, rather than the liveable world. Many interpret ‘sustainability’ to mean the ability to sustain their own business/growth/success, often at the expense of a liveable world.
A better word might be ‘viability’. Considering the ‘viability’ of a business may force a more thorough consideration of the world in which that business intends to exist, and what incentives and goals it can realistically operate with.
What role do you think market research/agencies play in relation to sustainability?
Market researchers agencies are needed to help their clients recognise that people are not just ‘consumers’ with appetites but Citizens with agency. Agencies have the skills and power to help their clients understand what really matters to people (e.g. greater connection), and how to help people achieve this.
Typically, agencies help businesses understand how to sell more things to people. They perhaps assume this has been considered to be morally and practically sensible by the businesses they serve – it may not have been. They could instead help clients understand whether their efforts are aligned with what really matters to people, and whether those efforts are aligned with a viably liveable, living world.
What do you think is the role of young researchers in the industry journey?
Young researchers are the future of the industry. If you don’t support what the industry is doing, or how it is behaving, then the industry is in trouble. When you come together as a community to stand for a different way for the industry to behave, you therefore have significant power.
So you are needed, by the wider situation but also the industry, to unite and stand up for what you believe is right. To hold the leadership to account on their claims to be pursuing ‘sustainability’, reveal the motivations and incentives that might be stopping them from doing so, and show them, using the imagination that they themselves may lack, a better way.
Your role is also to be the closest thing to representatives of the future generations whose rights and livelihoods cannot otherwise be represented.
Who do you think is leading the way (companies, individuals, brands etc) in relation to sustainability. What lessons can we learn from them?
This is a huge and complicated question, one answer to which is ‘no one’ (no business, at least).
Because right now our economic system forces us to use more resources than we can replenish, which is a terminal condition. We are literally dying. Anyone seeking to halt and reverse this is ‘leading’, but there aren’t many companies in our part of the world who are truly doing it, because most feel trapped in this economic system, stuck chasing perverse incentives, that prevent them from doing so.
You would be looking for any brand/business that is seeking to:
- put wellbeing and a liveable world before profit
- reduce violence and harm around the world
- unite with others to change the systems that are currently blocking them from doing so.
So Patagonia, who give all their profit away, and focus on reusing materials etc., might be a recognisable example. But even Patagonia wouldn’t say they were ‘sustainable’.
You would also be looking for businesses who are being open and transparent about what they are trying to do, the mistakes they have made, and the barriers they face in doing ‘the right thing’ (or stopping doing ‘the wrong thing’). Oatly are perhaps an example of this.
You might find more inspiration from less or obvious places, like the Bristol Energy Cooperative, or Civic Square.
On a more individual basis, keep an eye on Mariana Mazzucato, Kate Raworth, Jason Hickel, Alnoor Ladha, Tyson Yunkaporta, Mia Mottley, Vanessa Andreotti…
Do you have any advice or words of wisdom for young people in the industry who want to make a difference but perhaps don’t feel like they currently can?
If you’re asking the question “What can I do as an individual?”, step one is to stop thinking of yourself as an individual. It’s ultimately a simple recipe: get understanding, get sharing, get together.
Your power comes from the fact that you represent the moral authority of young people, who are connected to the reality of this situation and what needs to be done (and undone) – and that there are a lot of you coming together.
So be you, and be you loudly, and plurally (making sure to understand some communications basics).
Are there any podcasts / magazines / YouTube channels / documentaries / LinkedIn profiles or similar that you’d like to shout out that you think have some valuable resources or interesting content for young people to engage with on the topic?
a) Watch MAKING SENSE OF THE CRISIS and listen to all of the speaker Rachel Donald’s podcast, ‘Planet: Critical’ b) Watch Jennifer Wilkins on ‘Degrowth’, and read her ‘Degrowth Opportunity’ paper c) Watch/read Marianna Mazzucato on the role of consulting d) Read Hospicing Modernity by Vanessa Machado de Oliveira e) Read Anand Giridharadas’s The Persuaders f) Check out this list for a full download on what else to check out
Do you have any thoughts on agencies saying no to ‘bad’ or ‘contentious’ companies? Do you have any experience of doing this?
It is one of the key powers that agencies hold – the power to withdraw your work. It’s also a key power that individuals hold (hence why strikes are powerful compared to protests).
So do it if you can justify it but be prepared to get fired if you do it alone. I know people who have been fired for refusing to work on clients. If there’s an entire level of the business refusing it becomes much harder for them to stop it.
Beware the ‘anti-woke’ backlash: make sure your reasoning is solid, backed by hard evidence, grounded in an appeal to the values of safety, livelihood, security, and health (your own and children/future people’s), and committed to a viably liveable and living world.
Any final comments you’d like to add for young members in the industry who are passionate about sustainability (or even those who aren’t as engaged)?
I love the quote from Desmond Tutu: “There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.” – keep this in mind.
Keep going upstream, keep understanding the layers of what is going on here and why, keep trying to get at and expose the root causes.
If you think Carbon Dioxide is the problem, if you think fossil fuels are the cause, and if you think decarbonisation is the solution, you’re not wrong, but you’re not all the way upstream yet…
And to help you with this, always be asking “who is benefitting?”
Reflections from the YPSC
We want to say a big thank you to Paddy for providing our industry with inspiration and hope. Our biggest takeaway is the collective power that young people hold to influence the future of Market research. We share Paddy’s vision of seeing the future of Market Research moving away from encouraging ‘consumers’ to buy more to ‘citizens’ who strive for connection and wellbeing. Our role as young people in this industry is to unite and stand up to what we believe is right and pave the way for the world we want to create.