At a conference called Reboot Britain, I went along to a session called Creativity versus Climate Change. It was presented by Naresh Ramchandani and others from Do the Green Thing. This is a public service that inspires people to lead a greener life inspired by videos and artworks by creative people. I really like this concept and the quirky humour. I think they promote themselves very well, helped by being from advertising & PR backgrounds, so hopefully it does have some reach and impact. I get what Naresh meant when he said ‘we need marketing to fight the marketing’ i.e. green marketing to counterbalance the mainstream non-green marketing. However, the session raised a few questions for me.
One of the speakers Luke Wilkinson began to talk encouragingly about the contribution of the Creative & Cultural Industries. He stated that there is not enough investment in cultural innovation compared to technological innovation to fight climate change. He then cited a few examples that were to do with marketing & advertising to change lifestyles, suggesting that it is good work but that there was only a handful of people doing it and that it is underfunded. I was thinking the discussion needed to go much further. Is marketing all we can mean by cultural innovation? And is marketing to change lifestyles really all that effective anyway?
There are many other contexts where environmentally-aware cultural innovation is taking place and also many other contexts which are ripe for its introduction. If we can describe cultural innovation in much broader and more serious terms it may get more credence. Funders and taxpayers are probably a little reluctant to pay marketing & advertising companies to innovate, whereas they might be willing to support the work of research institutes, museums, heritage societies, galleries, community projects, charities, conservation bodies and so on.
Changing lifestyles is only one part of fighting climate change. We need to change the views of decision-makers at Governmental, NGO and corporate levels. We also need to educate and empower communities to contribute to decision-making (for example about Sustainable Communities policies, about Coastal Management plans or about planning decisions). We also need to help people keep hold of their cultural heritage and cope with the loss of it in the future. I’m very motivated to see artists and creative activists involved in these processes, helping to mediate knowledge between experts and others, and to envisage new solutions. For example, I’ve bee very inspired by the work of artist, Simon Read, who has immersed himself in coastal & river management issues for many years and uses his art to help mediate the knowledge of engineers, conservationists and planners.
I think we do Creativity vs Climate Change a disservice by describing it only in terms of promoting green lifestyles, although in saying that I don’t mean any disrespect to the great work of Do the Green Thing. I’m excited by this notion of Cultural Innovation and will continue to explore what it can mean. I think that we fail to acknowledge the importance of cultural innovation because culture in general is interpreted in terms of the pleasure principle. We assume that culture is only about entertainment and fun, only about access to luxury commodities or experiences, and therefore irrelevant to serious work to conserve and develop our natural and built environment. Culture is about how people can connect with one another, and connect with knowledge from the past, in order to make meaning and solve problems. The cultural sector (beyond the creative & cultural industries) has a really important role to play.
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