Once upon a time, on a cold and windy Halloweeny evening, a few brave Futerrans ventured to the depths of Southwark to learn about the ghosts of that area. The walking tour was compelling, as ghost stories notoriously are, and it got me thinking about what we can learn from this ancient art for our own sustainability communication purposes...

1. Atmosphere is everything – if this ghost walk had taken place on a sunny July afternoon, I doubt we would have given it much attention at all. But on a cold and dark autumn evening, the group stuck pretty close together.

   In the same way, your communications need to come at the right time - a campaign to encourage draught busting in the home won’t be very effective during the heat of summer.

2. Know your facts – our ghost walk was lead by a local historian. His expertise was obvious and this helped blur the line between factual history and ghost story - making it much more likely we were going to believe the latter.

   A display of expertise is a short cut to trustworthiness (one of our 10 Rules of Communicating Sustainability PDF). This is important whatever you’re trying to get your audience to believe in, from beheaded horsemen to the pros of lowering their washing machine temperature.

3. Gimmicks and overkill don’t work – one of the reasons I enjoyed this ghost walk more than others I’ve been on was the lack of ‘spooky’ effects – no try-hard top hat and cane, no forced group activities and definitely no ‘surprise’ visitors. Instead, enjoyment came directly from the stories of the local area – some ghostly, some not.

   When you’re trying to change unsustainable behaviour or give a convincing argument, cheap gimmicks or obvious devices rarely work; they’ll fail even harder if you don’t have a solid base of something worth saying to back your work up.

4. Social proof – a couple of times during the walk, our guide referred to his stories’ sources: most of them came via friends or acquaintances, picked up on other ghost walks or, in a couple of cases, experienced personally.

   Communicating about sustainability becomes much more powerful once you start including a similar kind of social proof. For example, talking about other people who have adopted a new behaviour is essentially the equivalent of saying ‘most people I bring here say they feel suddenly cold’. Brrrr.

5. Make a connection – I’ve only ever gone on ghost walks in an area that I’m familiar with. Wandering around London Bridge, the stories I heard came to life as I connected them with places that I’d walked past many times before.

   Relating sustainability communications to a personal circle is another of our Rules – just like I’d be unlikely to go on a ghost walk in a city I was visiting for one night, so I’m unlikely to take action on something that’ll cut carbon emissions in Asia, for example. But if that’s the action you really want me to take, try to make a connection between my geography and the place I’ll be helping.

6. Make your audience want to believe – None of these ghost walkers were there to heckle; in fact, because the guide was a well known local figure and a lovely guy to boot, there was a great deal of goodwill within the group. This positivity spilled over to the stories – we weren’t in a sceptical frame of mind, we were there to be entertained and, to some extent, informed.

   This is a particularly powerful technique in communicating sustainability. If you’re talking to an audience that would rather believe you than not, how can you fail? The trick of course is getting to this stage...but that sounds like a good subject for another blog post.

This ghost walk was run by John Constable, playwright, poet and local historian. Oh, and if you’re looking for how to actually tell a ghost story, try this.

The fantastic Olly Lawder came in for a lunch and learn last week to talk to us all about gamification. It’s one of those buzz words that you hear bandied about: Greenpeace have been using it, Mashable think it’s something every marketer should consider and Foursquare is the newest, hottest social media platform. But there are also the dissenters. Those who think it is yet another piece of marketing fluff, or worse, bullshit.

So what is gamification and why is it so divisive? Having finished a thesis on the application of this technique to pro environmental behaviour, Olly was just the man to fill us in. Here is a whistlestop tour:

Gamification ≠Games

“Gamification is the application of game elements to non-game situations

Gamification is not about creating games per se, but applying game elements to products, services and processes. It’s about understanding the psychological depth to what makes games ‘fun’, rewarding and engaging and deploying these insights to improve the way audiences interact. These elements break down into three:

• game aesthetics such as ‘discovery’, ‘fellowship’ and ‘narrative’ are the core experiential outcomes game players seek;
• game dynamics describe the engagement processes over time and
• game mechanics are the tools and devices that provide compelling feedback and sustain engagement.

Most people think about points, badges and rewards, when they think of gamification. These are all examples of game mechanics that can be applied to real world situations.

Games are addictive

Everyone who’s ever become a ‘Grand Theft Auto’ widow(er), or lost an entire week playing Myst will understand how addictive games are. The vast amount of time and money people are prepared to spend has translated into a booming business: the computer games industry is expected to be worth $68bn in 2012. This little statistic puts it nicely into context:

“Humans have spent 5.93 million years in World of Warcraft - 5.93m years ago our ancestors stood up for the 1st time.”  (McGonigal, 2010)

Clearly, there is something about gaming that is attracting our interest and retaining it. Gamification is effectively a psychological exploration and application of why that might be.

Games are better than sex

This may be puzzling for those of us who don’t have a World of Warcraft login, but the answer is predictability. Gabe Zicherman explains how games create a predictable space for us to exist in, we have clearly defined ways of progressing (for example, pick up the axe, to kill the monster and rescue the princess, much easier than real life challenges such as getting a promotion). In games, players will take actions against their self-interest, in a predictable way. Sex may sell, and is one way of get people to take actions against their own interest, however, their actions and responses can be highly unpredictable.

To summarise, if you want people to act in a certain way, well-crafted us of game aesthetics, dynamics and elements can elicit predictable reactions.

Gamification is the next stage in social media

So, video games are incredibly successful, as is Facebook. But what made Facebook so successful in the first place? Why aren’t we all frantically checking our MySpace profiles right now? The answers to this one are (in part) newsfeeds and updates. The thing that makes us check Facebook and Twitter obsessively is the fact that they are changing all the time – and nudging us to come back and have a look. However, the excitement in this technology is fading and usage rates are dropping off. The temporariness of viral campaigns, the shallow engagement provided by a Facebook ‘like’ are creating a sense that social might be reaching its limits. From the dizzy excitement of a few years ago, there’s less room to innovate.

Stickiness is the new fetish, it’s no longer good enough to simply ask people to click on a page, we want interaction too. Gamification is shaping up to be an evolution for social media offering deeper levels of engagement.

Gamification has the power to change behaviour by making it ‘fun’

The Nissan Leaf and supporting ‘Carwings’ website’ is a great example of gamification. Both use visual displays to feed back to the driver how fuel efficient their driving is. Not only that, but it publishes region-wide and global leader boards, allowing you to compete against other Leaf drivers in your area. Aimed at the green pound, its narrative (a green car that promotes eco driving) appeals to a green’s self-image. It also allows for the development of intrinsic motivation to drive efficiently by promoting autonomy through goals and feedback, as well as encouraging the user to build their driving ability to experience key game dynamics of ‘flow’ and ‘mastery’. Nissan are claiming a significant cost saving when running the Leaf, enhanced by users trying to beat their best drive and become more efficient than others around them.

Good gamification engages intrinsic motivation

I’ve posted much before on the need to foster intrinsic motivation to become part of something. You can ply a player with all of the badges, points and levels available to them, but if it doesn’t fit with their values or the task at hand, it won’t work. Mechanics such as points, badges and rewards can provide extrinsic motivation and maintain interest over time, but game aesthetics and dynamics are important to appeal to and build intrinsic motivation.

So thanks to Olly for his whistlestop tour. What do you think? Does gamification have the power to change behaviour, or is it just a load of old rubbish? Let us know below….

Low-hanging fruit

'In our DNA'

Innovative

Blue (vs green)

Leadership

Britain has, as the Daily Mash so marvellously put it, been 'hit by entirely typical weather' for this autumnal time of year. This has brought the unseasonably warm spell we were enjoying a week or so ago conclusively to an end, and an email from my old buddy Nick Cobbing pops into my inbox.

Nick is a multi-award winning photo journalist who for the last few years has undertaken major missions to Greenland and the Arctic Circle with Greenpeace to creatively capture the shifting situation at the top of our world. You've probably seen Nick's compelling images before, as they have graced many a publication and media outlet (see Nick's lovely website here). 

Nick’s images are as always powerful, visceral and challenging. One of this year's story emerging story themes is 'Where the ice goes to die', a series of amazing pictures whose scale is impossible to determine, microscopic ice crystals or vast crumbling frozen seascapes? They are also ethereally and aesthetically beautiful, the strange, fractured geometry of fragmenting ice sheets and floes, the weird granular textures set against the icy blackness of the forbiddingly cold waters below. These are the photographic canary in the coalmine of our changing world and grip me every time I see them. 

A lot of Nick's work is dedicated to documenting the endeavours of the pioneering polar scientists who are studying the impacts of climate change so it’s also lovely to see the playful curiosity of a polar bear cub toying merrily with a piece of monitoring equipment. Mother in the background however is an altogether more powerfully menacing prospect…

A couple of Nick’s pictures grace Futerra’s home here at Number Four. They are a daily reminder of one of the key reasons why we do what we do. So thanks Mr Cobbing for your ongoing inspiration and the good news is after several months in the Arctic you’re back to London just in time for winter!

: )

Wouldn't it be simpler if we could just blow up invading aliens?

As I sat watching Will Smith fight a evil insectoid alien during Independence Day last night I couldn't help feeling wistful. If only I could fight climate change with a cocky smile, a cigar and a witty 'welcome to earth' punch.

How smoothly would international carbon agreements, behaviour change and innovation come if some nasty tentacled thing was causing the planet to burn. The Los Angeles Times played with this idea in If Only Gay Sex Caused Global Warming, although personally I think invading aliens make a juicer common climate enemy.

Then perhaps we could expect real (i.e. Hollywood-esque) leadership - cue music welling up and lights dimming...

“I address you tonight, not as the president of the United States, not as the leader of a country, but as a citizen of humanity. We are faced with the very gravest of challenges, the greatest challenge we have every faced. And yet for the first time in the history of the planet, a species has the technology and ability to prevent its own extinction.

..cut to families watching the TV around the kitchen table, crowds gathering outside electrical stores drawn in to the face shown across multiple screens... 

All of you praying with us need to know that everything that can be done to prevent this disaster is being called into service. The human thirst for excellence, for knowledge, every step up the ladder of science, every adventurous reach into space, all of our combined modern technologies and imaginations, even the wars that we’ve fought, have provided us the tools to wage this terrible climate battle. Through all the chaos that is our history, through all of the wrongs and the discord, through all of the pain and suffering through all of our times, there is one thing that has nourished our souls. And elevated our species above its origins. And that is our courage.

...man in field leans on a spade listening to his radio, children in schoolroom face the TV as the teacher slowly stands... 

Dreams of an entire planet are focused today on our goal. Each of us will need to exhibit that bravery, sacrifice and courage other generations have expected of their best, of their heroes. Today you are that hero. And may we all, citizens the world over, see these events through.

God speed and good luck to you."

(adapted from Armageddon - another of my wish fulfilment favourites)

Climate denier and activist alike could stand shoulder to shoulder shooting at the sky. 

A recognised 'baddy' of climate change, an outside influence, a moral anathema would be so much easier to fight than the simple accumulation of carbon from billions of us lovely, normal, everyday people going about our business. We're supposed to be either the victims, or preferably the plucky rebels fighting against evildoers attempting the destroy the world.

If only.

Social media shares a lot of the same values as sustainability: transparency, innovation, ethics and collaboration (hat tip to Mathew Yeomans). Social media has created a great opportunity to promote transparency, two-way dialogue and transform bland, turgid CSR reports in to real time reporting that actually involves stakeholders. And look at how successful Greenpeace’s recent direct action campaign against Mattel has been at changing a corporation’s behaviour.

But could the socialisation (I don’t like that word either) of the web also pose a great threat to sustainable development?     

At the turn of this year Wired published an article entitled “Commerce gets social: How social networks are driving what you buy”. It explores how social commerce is tapping into psychological and sociological traits like social proof, ego, sharing, status and the power of social networks to drive commerce. Read it, it’s brilliant. One line in particular grabbed my attention

“Suddenly, Facebook starts looking like the world's most efficient shopping mall, where half a billion people are led to goods they might want to buy.”

That shopping mall makes Westfield Stratford City look like a corner shop.

The web and social media present huge monetary opportunities to brands that understand social and the interface that shapes purchasing behaviours. And this is already happening, fast. Behavioural economics expert Rory Sutherland of Ogilvy says in his TED talk  ‘marketing has done a very good job at creating opportunities for impulse buying’.
 
So will this new social layer that is going to be built into almost all of online commerce be a blow to sustainable development as we drive our already unsustainable consumption patterns even higher? Or can we use these already existing behaviours to sustainability’s advantage?

Yesterday I had the privilege of joining a panel at a Demos event at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool: "Opportunity Knocks: How can government and business nurture a green tech revolution?". I shared the platform with Luciana Berger MP, Arne de Kock Senior Commercial Manager at Shell UK (there representing Shell Springboard) and John Lewis of 2D Heat. 

It was a pretty lively discussion, and here's a precis of my contribution, firstly from Government:

1. Vision: We need a compelling, dramatic, positive and engaging vision of the low carbon future, economy and country we are trying to create. It needs to be 'sizzling' obviously. 
2. Regulation: Not the sexiest idea tucked into the suspender of change, but hey, Feed in Tariffs, Low Carbon Enterprise Zones, and the use of low interest loans by the Carbon Trust have helped drive innovation such as retrofitting of LED lighting (something we're doing here at Futerra). 
3. Reskilling: Why don't we take the presumably quite technically minded 3000 staff to be laid off by BAE Systems and retrain them? We could use their expertise in developing clever ways of blowing things and people up and aim it in a slightly more constructive direction. Likewise for all those experienced offshore engineers, lets get them building wind turbines, wave and tidal power stations rather than oil and gas platforms...
4. Investment: Show. Me. The. Money. Or 'cold folding' as we call it in Norfolk, we need to invest some serious money, not cut the funding of crucial emerging technologies such as wave and tidal power. There is a serious risk of massive opportunity cost to the UK economy if we fail to develop, capitalise and export these technologies.
5. Prioritise: We have to do this. Let's be decisive and put it at the heart of Government strategy. Let's get the Treasury onboard and let's kickstart a revolution...Government's always love those...

It seems all too recently that I found myself writing about the sad passing of Interface's inspirational Ray Anderson (see my blog 'A Ray of light...'), and here I am again crafting a mini-eulogy for yet another incredible, powerful and wonderful advocate and activist for sustainability Wangari Maathai.

I was fortunate to meet Wangari in person a couple of years ago when we helped curate a series of lectures, 'Architecture & Climate Change' in partnership with RIBA. My over-riding memories are of that heart-melting smile, resplendent outfit, direct straight-talking style and eyes that burnt with both a fierce determination and love for her cause, our cause.

It is all too easy to become despondent and disillusioned when you work in sustainability, when we bump up against resistant forces, entrenched behaviours, vested interests and seemingly impossible odds and timescales, but Wangari's ambitions and achievements stand as a ringing and vibrant testimony to what simple old fashioned practical passion and doing can deliver.

I don't need to list her considerable contributions to our environment, the welfare of the poorest Kenyan people, the rights of women and the notions of what is possible in this world, others have written eloquently about these already (see this Guardian article).

But suffice to say she tirelessly campaigned on those issues that ired her, helped plant over 50M trees through her Green Belt Movement, challenged political corruption and cronyism, and was unafraid to put herself and her own body on the line if needs be to raise awareness or draw attention to things that were simply in her eyes 'wrong'. 

We lost another international sustainability star and role model this week. The most fitting tribute we can ever pay to the likes of Wangari and Ray is to acknowledge and celebrate their courageous commitment and transformative achievements and aspire, in whatever way we can, to making our own contributions to changing the world.

Let us continue the work people...we owe it to those pioneers who have trodden this long path to sustainability before us, those whom walk alongside us now, and those who will walk it in the future. The journey continues...

A little while ago a Canadian who goes by the YouTube handle of Damewse, taught NASA a lesson in comms.

It's about reframing. It's about selling the sizzle. It's about an inspirational vision. It's about really nailing NASA's 'why'. An organisation's why is a very powerful thing to connect to, check out Simon Sinek to learn that lesson too.

So, what's the lesson? What did Damewse do? They started from the place that so many great things begin, including Futerra. The place of things that piss you off - 

“NASA is the most fascinating, adventurous, epic institution ever devised by human beings, and their media sucks. Seriously. None of their brilliant scientists appear to know how to connect with the social media crowd, which is now more important than ever. In fact, NASA is an institution whose funding directly depends on how the public views them.”

Damewse created a video that did it for them. Here it is. Watch it and see how to do a great reframe and how to talk about sustainability in a new way. 

Happy Birthday Futerra! For most of the last 10 years I’ve been down in the trenches writing copy, hovering over designers and building strategies. But I've counted up the time I've spent communicating sustainability and it's now well over 10,000 hours. Add in the full Futerra team and we’re probably pushing a million. Which according to Malcolm Gladwell means we might know a thing or two.

So as I paint my nails pink in preparation for Futerra's Birthday party tonight, here are a choice few of my biggest learnings - some were nuanced, some which were rammed down my throat:

Creativity rocks

Creativity, copy and concepts can change the world. Find the dazzling idea, dress it in the compelling picture and write copy that sticks in the head and you’ll change the way people think and act. If only that was easy thing to do...

Talking is a transaction

No one has an obligation to pay you any attention. No matter how important your message is (and climate change, biodiversity loss and sustainability are pretty damn important), they don’t have to listen. If you want an audience, remember that attention is a gift, so deserves something in return. Entertain, inspire, amuse or intrigue.  

Shut up and listen

Audiences know what they want, but sometimes we don’t want to hear them. Start from where your audiences are, not where you really wished they were. Audiences are often really clear about what they want, and how they want to be communicated to. Suck it up, listen and respond.

Burst the bubble

Being in a movement is brilliant; homogeneity isn’t. Remember that messages that work for ‘PLU’ (people like us darling) can rile and incense a different audience. Pissing people off can be fun, unless they are the people you really want to change. Talk to someone with a totally different outlook on life. And I said talk to, not browbeat or argue with.

Catch Up

Most of your audiences are already here. They believe in sustainability. Because action on sustainability doesn’t match expressed concern, we don’t believe them. So some well meaning people keep stuffing the problem and more information down people’s throats. Stop it. The barriers to sustainability action are rarely awareness or concern. The real barriers (habit, agency and access) are much harder.

We’re all in a bloody big tent

Business, citizens, government and charities; we’re all mutually dependent. No one is going to do this on their own. Futerra will work with NGOs and with the big energy companies in the same day if we think it will make a difference. The journey to sustainability isn’t for the ‘chosen righteous few’.

Status and social proof

Psychology, neuroscience and sociology are power tools for sustainability. Change the psychological status and social proof of sustainability and it’s job done. That’s what making sustainable development so desirable (high status) that it becomes normal (social norm) means.

Don’t be a surrender monkey

Hope is hard, the warm blanket of both denial and despair are much more comfy. But fat healthy urbanites talking about the ‘inevitability’ of climate change means accepting the death of millions, that’s not language that shouldn’t be allowed.

Sizzle

One of Futerra’s brand values. Positivity breeds action; negativity breeds apathy.Read all about it.

Just frigging do it

If you’ve got a plan, a business idea, a campaign. Don’t wait. Sell your grandparents and make it happen. Nothing is perfect but if you don’t start, nothing is exactly what you’ve got. We need millions of entrepreneurs, innovators, communicators and change makers. That’s you, and we need you.

Phew, that felt good. Now where’s the bubbly?

When it comes to encouraging more sustainable behaviour, there are a few central messages that crop up time and again – recycle, turn off lights, shop locally etc.... As a writer, it can be difficult to get these important messages across in a meaningful way without resorting to language that’s been used many times before.

Sometimes, repetitious language is a strength – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle is a slogan that becomes stronger the more it’s reinforced. But more often, say if the message isn’t getting through or if a client wants to come up with something original, impact will only come if we find new ways to say old things.

The secret to this, according to business writer John Simmons, is to write within very strict constraints. At first, this seems counterintuitive – surely the greater the constraint the more limited you are in your creative options? Not so.

I’ve just finished reading Simmons’ excellent Twenty-six ways of looking at a blackberry. In each of his 26 chapters, he rewrites the ‘base text’ (a rather ordinary yearly report) while under the influence of 26 different constraints. We see the text:

• morphed into a country & western song - “And life moves on, it just moves on”;
• reduced to a single ‘last line’ - “Z is the end, but in the end is a beginning. Continue";
• crafted into a Greek myth - Telethe transforms a pebble “into an icon that could speak and listen from afar”;
• ...and squeezed into a series of six word stories - “Look. Ask. Find answers. Buy. Sell.”

Each constraint brings something new to the table. Whether it’s a clever word play or an idea turned upside down, writing with your hands metaphorically tied can liberate your creativity.

Throughout our literary heritage, writers have written within constraints. For every set of brand guidelines you encounter, Shakespeare risked torture if he criticised the crown; for every word count you wrestle with, Wilde risked imprisonment if he misjudged his double-entendres. For these writers, the result was usually a thrilling combination of more technically complex structure and a mastery of language play.

Can you rise to your challenges in the same way?

The next time you’re facing a blank page, an unimaginative brief or a bit of writer’s block, take a leaf out of Simmons’ book and get those creative juices flowing by giving yourself a new type of challenge.

To get you started, here's a constraint for the comments: can you write one of those messages from the first paragraph (recycle, turn off lights, shop locally) as a haiku? Quick refresh: a haiku has three lines, five, seven and five syllables long; it should nod to a season and have a break either between the first two lines and the third, or the first line and the last two.

Here's my attempt:

As the days pinch tighter,

We bring our own light to life.

But enough's enough.

Last weekend a plucky band of debating Futerrans frolicked at the lovely Shambala Festival in deepest darkest Northamptonshire. Taking centre stage in the festival's real ale bar 'The Wonky Cock' Futerra's 'Team Human' was opposing the motion 'This House believes that humans are not fit for purpose...'. Staying ruthlessly impartial and objective I was chairing the session and the motion's proponents were 'The Pirate Technics' - worth looking out for as they specialise in blowing stuff up in spectacular fashion for a living (best not to cross them I reckon). 

Taking place as it did on the Sunday lunchtime of a rather lively festival experience, both teams did brilliantly stringing coherent sentences together let alone elucidating complex, well structured debates built around numerous salient and cumulative points! A well-timed rain shower filled the Wonky Cock appropriately and the debate began (see a great 'fish-eye' picture here)...framing the event I posed the questions 'Are we a beacon of consciousness, warmth and light in an otherwise dark, cold and empty universe? Or are we just a virus with shoes?' (with thanks to Bill Hicks)

The Pirates opened on the front foot, disparaging humanity as fundamentally flawed and like 'ants', if we were 'fit for purpose' we would be better designed, where for example was our third arm for carrying multiple pints of festival ale? We were effectively failing the direction of evolution by circumnavigating the survival of the fittest and it would be best if we just self-sacrificed ourselves. Their killer conclusion? Purpose should not be conflated with personal goals - an individual desire to achieve is not the same as purpose in itself...

Team Human came back strongly, we are caring and biologically hard-wired to be empathic - as demonstrated by the power of mirror neurons that enable us to feel and share the emotions of others. We are innovative, mindful and resourceful with an innate capacity for creativity, but most of all we genuinely are a conscious, reflective force for good in an otherwise meaningless existence...

So, after some lucid and brilliant comments from the crowd (which I foolishly failed to write down - but trust me they were good!) we put it to the roar of the vote. The result? The motion was defeated and Team Human were victorious! Huge thanks to the great guys from the Pirate Technics and Sid from Shamabala who invited us along to make it all happen.

In the absence of Glastonbury next year and no scheduled outing for the 'Earthly Sins Confessional Booth' I know which festival is going to be top of my list! The small but perfectly formed Shambala...  

We’ve been working on ways to measure the impact of our work for a long, long time. As anyone in communications will tell you, it’s not an exact science.

One bit of this is looking at the impact some of our thought leadership is having.

Take Sell the Sizzle. It’s been downloaded over 200,000 times in 2010 alone, by people and organisations on five continents. Fantastic stats I think you’ll agree. But, how has it been used? What change is it creating in the hands of the people who downloaded it? What have people learned from applying it?

We’d love to know the answers to these and lots of other questions.

So, if you or your organisation have read the Sizzle and used it in any way, we would love to hear from you! We want to know how you’ve used Sizzle and what change It’s helped you create. It doesn’t need to be quantified, or concrete, but if you feel that the Sizzle has had an impact on the way you or your organisation communicates, then we should talk.

Email, tweet or reply to this blog post to let us know who you are and what you’ve done, and we’ll probably give you a call to find out more.

A follow on blog post will be written about what we find out.

Whilst reading Paul Davis excellent book ‘Eerie Silence: are we alone in the Universe?’ a strange thought crossed my mind.

Various groups (and a few governments) have planned how to cope with any revelation that we have galactic company. Global panic, psychological shock, religious fervour and shooting at the sky have all been suggested as likely human responses and therefore been planned for.  But all of the books, articles and official papers seem to have overlooked one obvious human reaction to a visit from little green men: deep toe curling embarrassment.

As NASA scientists ponder the message humanity should send to the stars, SETI groups plan for possible first contact, and governments consider contingencies, they’ve forgotten the most human of reactions to being caught out. Look around the planet today and the only sensible response to non human intelligent life coming to visit is a deep blush. It would be worse than your mother in law popping over when you’re nursing a hangover with empty pizza boxes under the sofa.

As a little girl I’d stare longingly up at the stars hoping someone was staring back down. Nowadays  my ‘first contact’ would likely be shiftiness and a desperately nonchalant attempt to draw their attention away from the Amazon, famine, war, biodiversity loss etc. Maybe the Olympics could distract them whilst we tidy up a bit.

Talk about an inferiority complex. They can transverse the monumental dark vastness to space to come visit and we can’t deal with a famine in Somalia? Long term thinking, super resource efficiency, protecting diversity – all key skills for deep space travel. NASA even fears climate change could tip them off that we’re ‘unfit guardians’ of the planet, triggering a ‘galactic environmental protection agency’ to descend with clipboards, shaking their antennae and clicking their blue tongues at us.

Perhaps ‘keeping up with the extra-terrestrial Joneses’ would be the kick humanity needs to clean up the planet. Can’t have the smug little green bastards turning their noses (or relevant appendage) up at us.

(Please please don’t be watching, it’s just too mortifying). 

Can I only Swish for a year?

Since Futerra created Swishing in 2007, I’ve said a thousand times that Swishing will replace fast, disposable fashion. Is that really possible? It’s time I put my money where my mouth is. Swishing is a global phenomenon, and I’m going to work out if it’s a way to live.

From today, I’m not buying any clothes, shoes, hats, bags or jewellery - for 12 months. No new killer heels for my friend Wooz’s wedding in 4 weeks, no shopping spree for Futerra’s 10th birthday party. Those will be the easy bits. Harder will be holidays, winter coming on, or if my body shape changes.   I love shiny new things, so it’s very intimidating, but also kind of exciting. I know I will meet some brilliant women at all the swishing parties I’ll go to. I’ll save some cash. I might even learn something about me (such as how much I really spend on clothes).

Giving up conspicuous consumption of fashion might not sound like the biggest sacrifice. But that’s the point, it shouldn’t be a sacrifice at all if Swishing lives up to its promise.

I’ll be tweeting my progress @SwishingLucy and blogging the highs and lows of no new clothes on the Swishing site.

I need your help. Thousands of women now swish, and I need tips, suggestions, resources and many many more swishing parties!

Wish me luck.

It was with much sadness this week that the world of sustainability said goodbye to one of it's greatest and most effective business advocates, Ray Anderson the inspirational and pioneering founder of Interface. Carpet tiles were never going to be the sexiest product on the block, but having grown the company into a billion dollar business Ray had an epiphany...

He set out to fundamentally transform the company into one with literally no negative environmental impact and for it then to become restorative - actually adding to and enhancing the world's environmental health. This 'Mission Zero' plan was and still is radical, bold and game-changing. And recently Ray reckoned Interface was half way to it's 2020 goal. The results speak for themselves: greenhouse gas emissions down by 24 percent, fossil fuel consumption down by 60 percent, waste to landfill down by 82 percent and water use down by 82 percent, while avoiding over $450 million in costs, increasing sales by 63 percent and more than doubling earnings. Who said sustainability doesn't pay?

What's compelling about Ray's and Interface's ambitions is that they always went way beyond simple green house-keeping. They were always about real creativity and transformation of the business model, from one-directional sale of carpet tiles, to service-based leasing which opened up the doors to closing material loops, cradle-to-cradle recycling, cascading of different elements and long-term customer loyalty and relationships. All of which, despite experimental and inevitable bumps along the way ultimately made and are making great business sense.

Perhaps the most striking thing however is how long it is taking other businesses to follow suit. M&S's much vaunted Plan A and Unilever's Sustainable Living Plan are good examples, but few other companies, despite the provocations of my business partner Solitaire's 'Letters to Leaders', have really embraced the opportunity for radical transformative change.

Why is this? At this month's Green Monday event on creative disruption we got a few answers. Simon Waldman of LoveFilm set out three criteria for delivering transformation:

1. Leaders  who believe in profound change. Something Ray Anderson had in spades and also Paul Polman at Unilever's vision...we also note from our own clients that owner-led businesses are often braver, bolder and more determined to 'do the right thing'.
2. A mix of 'fixers', 'rockstars' and 'fire-starters' to get and keep momentum going.
3. Ability to transform the core business without breaking it whilst simultaneously developing new ideas in parallel.

Last week I was privileged enough to compere an amazing night of evocative music, stirring spoken word and powerful poetry at the Kneehigh Theatre Company's beautiful 'Asylum' pop-up theatre in a Cornish field outside Truro. 'Global Cornwall' was a special one-off evening of inspiration and insight, education and emotion, love and laughter, curated by Paul Crewes of Kneehigh and legendary 'Surfer Against Sewage' Chris Hines (who in his own words is like 'a grain of sand - small, irritating, but out come pearls!').

Around 200 Cornish folk turned out to enjoy the acts, and it was my job to weave the whole evening into a narrative that made sense. Feisty, fiery and provocative singer Aruba Red, named after an infamous female Caribbean pirate, kicked us off with her own inimitable brand of powerfully socially-conscious lyrics and set the tone for the night. Alongside her we also enjoyed provocative young, local beat poet Seth Hampshire, who in his debut gig gave an assured and assertive performance of his philosophical prose (he's definitely one to watch!).

Anchoring the centre of the evening was veteran campaigner Peter Tatchell who gave a pointed and focused critique (and solutions!) to the idea of 'economic democracy', citing modest but radical interventions such as the 'Robin Hood Tax' as incisive ways of transforming the world. This intellectual stimulation was also emulated by Robert Holtum's challenge on 'Ecocide' and the creative use of the legal system to tackle environmental destruction. But for me the highlight had to be the amazing Amira. Described as the Bosnian Billie Holiday her incredibly impassioned and moving renditions of traditional 'sevdah' songs were haunting but gorgeous. 

By the end of the evening the Asylum was buzzing with a sense of 'can do' activism (there are some unedited photos of the night here). Aruba Red got us to our feet for a penultimate foot-stomper and Amira touched us all with a very personal story about living through the four year siege of Sarajevo. There was something about the clever combination of art, culture and campaigning that was greater than the simple sum of it's parts - something we know a lot about at Futerra. We were informed, but we were also deeply moved. We were inspired, but also incited. We were challenged, but also empowered.

Full credit to Paul and Chris for iniating such a great event. It gave food for thought, sustenance for the soul, serenaded the spirit, touched the heart and perhaps most of all, and as was originally intended, put fire in the belly. More please and let's go change the world... 

• “BP wasn’t comfortable publishing that kind of number.” The response given when asked why the spill numbers didn’t feature.
• “Negative word-of-mouth is not helping BP’s reputation – nearly half would criticise BP.” This remarkably whiny finding from the GlobeScan stakeholder survey, which aimed to gauge the success of BP’s report, was at the centre of a 20-minute discussion from our hosts on reputation. Not performance, reputation.
• “Do you have any ideas that would make our reporting perceived as credible?” No comment.
• “This is something we need to look into.” The response given to someone asking about climate adaptation and what BP is doing about it.