Highlighting Business Designer André Kennedy
Start by creating a group that is an outlet for everyone in the company who wants to channel their desire for change. This will create the bottom up pressure needed for company decision makers to see that this is an important topic and something that employees want.
André Kennedy is a business designer that is part of a climate hive at Making Waves, a digital design agency in Oslo, Norway. His role involves helping companies innovate their business models so that they have a positive societal and environmental impact. Originally from Australia, André has spent the last few years working at places like IDEO in the US and autonomous transportation startups in Switzerland.
What has motivated you to proactively take climate action at the place you work?
The climate crisis has always influenced the way I’ve chosen to lead my life. But a few years ago, I realized that if I wanted to have a real impact, I needed to bring my action to the workplace, and so that’s when I started exploring how I can use my knowledge to help transform companies into solutions for the climate crisis versus the alternative.
How did you start? What things did you do in your effort?
I first started by teaming up with colleagues who shared my passion- we discovered that together we could drive initiatives and momentum internally.
As a business designer, there is a lot of talk about sustainability but few of our tools or theory gives us actionable ways to practice this. So one of the first things I did was build a business model canvas driven by triple bottom line economics. It’s not revolutionary, but it’s one of those things that when you see it, you’re just like, “Oh well that’s obvious, why has it taken this long?”
How did your company and office react?
We found that a lot of people wanted to act, but didn’t have a channel to do so. When we gave them this channel, they became very engaged and wanted to contribute.
What were the outcomes? Were there any changes?
There we definitely some changes — people started talking about it and it slowly became part of the day-to-day narrative. While Coronavirus put things on pause, we still see that our company wants to embrace it. Not sure where it’s going, but there are exciting times ahead.
What worked best?
That depends. For sales, it was all about showing the financial potential — that there is a market, it’s not some pipe dream. For the company, it was all about giving channels to express themselves and keeping them updated about the progress so that everyone stays inspired and talking about it. For me, it was about finding like-minded people to work with so we could spar and strategize.
What did not work so well?
The coronavirus was probably the biggest bump. It was really hard to keep the momentum and inspiration going when we were all at home. While things are picking up again, the whole COVID situation took the wind out of the sails of the climate crisis movement in general, so it’s going to take some time before things are moving again globally.
Illustration by Zhi Wang
What is your advice to someone starting out?
Start by creating a group that is an outlet for everyone in the company who wants to channel their desire for change. This will create the bottom up pressure needed for company decision makers to see that this is an important topic and something that employees want.
What would you like to see happen in the coming years- what is your wish list for climate action?
My first top wish would be for companies to start including the Earth in their missions and values. Only once we take responsibility for our planet, and recognize that we need it as much as it needs us, can we create any meaningful change.
My other top wish would be for economies to stop using economic growth as a core indicator and start using other economic models such as doughnut economics. Without changing the systems that are causing this crisis, we’ll only be able to change so much.
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André Kennedy is the author of a free sustainable business model canvas as well as A New Beginning for Inclusive Design, an article that details how designers might make their work more accessible to forgotten audiences. He can be found at LinkedIn.
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This article was first published on the Hive Initiative Medium account.