Andy Last
Here Come the 'Do Wellers'
Business Case / In the din of companies and brands shouting about the good they’re doing, ‘purposewash’ is overtaking ‘greenwash’ as the default accusation of corporate hypocrisy. Thirty years ago, Chevron was one of the first accused of greenwash after a series of ads purporting to show its environmental stewardship commitment. ‘People Do’ showed employees protecting bears, butterflies, sea turtles and other cuddlies, but the campaign was attacked by environmentalists for glossing over the damage inflicted by Chevron operations on those creatures’ habitats. - 5 years ago
From the Archbishop of Canterbury to Captain Kirk and Donald Trump
The Next Economy / Can capitalism be ethical? This was the question asked by Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, in a recent lecture in Cambridge (part of Murray Edwards College’s Capitalism on the Edge series). He argued that while capitalism may unarguably deliver ethically desirable outcomes – such as innovations in health and less onerous work – it cannot be ethical per se if, at its core, it is about the ownership of property and its exchange for profit. Such a system, he argued, can’t generate systematic, sustainable answers to questions of social good and therefore be ethical. - 6 years ago
Can Empathy Survive the Echo Chamber?
Leadership / Note: In the aftermath of last week’s Presidential election, we at Sustainable Brands were struck by the parallels to a recent, similarly polarizing political situation abroad with an equally shocking result – the UK’s Brexit referendum – and how Andy Last’s astute observations at the time, about the breakdowns in communication that led just over half of Brits to vote to leave the EU, seem applicable to us here in the States now. We share it with you below – enjoy. - 6 years ago