Anna Parry is a super creator and co-founder of the design company Proto Proto. On Tuesday, she spoke to creators at the incubator about purpose-driven entrepreneurship linked to the UN Global Goals.
Millennials - people born between the early 1980s and mid-1990s - now make up 2.5 billion people globally and will soon be the strongest buying group in the world. This young generation, also known as Gen Y, thinks and lives in a way that is different from previous generations. They tend to choose products from brands that have a higher purpose than just solving a single problem or need.
Anna Parry, super creator and co-founder of the design company Proto Proto, is convinced that we need to transform the way we do business - to reverse the climate crisis we face and to achieve the UN's Sustainable Development Goals - and the new generation of consumers are the ones who will drive the change.
Over 60% of millennials choose brands that have a higher purpose than making money, says Anna. "Of course money is important, without a good business plan you can't make a difference, but I would say that money is never the reason why you run your business. The cause is something else - the values you build it on, the problem you want to solve, your special gift; money is an effect of your activity.
In our industry and in today's production society, there is a skewed distribution of income along the production chain, as brands take the lion's share of the revenue and it is usually only crumbs that go to the producer," Anna says. If you buy a t-shirt from one of the big clothing brands for 199 SEK, the person who made it gets about 3 SEK of that. At Proto Proto, we want to question every part of this whole process and change the way we as consumers think about vi and from. And it starts with us actually thinking about fromthose who produce what we buy. We see enormous potential for sustainable development in the countries we work in, and reducing inequality starts with work and income; we want to be able to provide as much work as possible to the co-operatives we work with, of course; but we also want to showcase the amazing richness that exists there, in terms of cultural heritage, craftsmanship and joie de vivre. This is an important part of our own purpose: to choose the stories we share with care. We are not interested in fuelling stereotypes - we want to show the other side of reality.
At Proto Proto we work with a collaborative design process where a designer and an artisan, from different cultures and circumstances, work together to design a product on equal terms with fair wages. It's super exciting, a kind of 'culture jamming'. Last week we launched our first product, a hand-woven rug, co-created by designers from Berlin and a weaving co-operative in Morocco.
'By working together across national and cultural boundaries, and talking about what we do, we hope to contribute to reducing inequality, increasing knowledge and a sense that we are not so different after all. And that everyone can make a difference.
And being able to talk about it with other creatives and entrepreneurs is super cool - if I can inspire even one person to think more sustainably and purpose-driven about their business, it's worth the stage fright! says Anna. I truly believe that purpose-driven entrepreneurship is the future, and both urgent and necessary if we are to have a future."
Anna's top three tips
These are Anna's top tips for finding your values and meeting the Millennial generation?
- Childhood. Start from strong positive memories of your childhood!
- Death. What will you not regret not trying when you are dying?
- Passion. What is your strong passion you cannot live without?
Global Sustainable Development Goals
On 25 September 2015, the 193 member states of the United Nations adopted Agenda 2030, a universal agenda that includes the Global Goals for Sustainable Development. The Global Goals consist of 17 targets and in turn have 169 sub-targets and 230 global indicators. The Global Goals are the most ambitious sustainable development agenda ever adopted by the world's nations and exist to achieve four great things by 2030:
To eradicate extreme poverty. To reduce inequalities and injustice in the world. To promote peace and justice. Solving the climate crisis.
Through the Global Goals for Sustainable Development, this can become a reality. In all countries. For all people!
