Amsterdam Gives a Damn about Climate Emergency

In response to the first Creatives for Climate Summit held on September 18th in Amsterdam, which featured climate activist group Extinction Rebellion, Patagonia, Native Circles and The Humblebrag, the Dutch advertising community has rallied together to respond to one of the key demands of the night - to tell the truth about the climate emergency.

The summit brought together 140 key stakeholders to drive action and in just a few days led to more than 20 agencies including HALAL, The Brave New Now, HarrimanSteel, Eyeforce, Revolver, Iris, Nomads and The ADCN (Art Directors Club the Netherlands) - signing onto the newly launched Creatives for Climate platform to collectively declare an emergency. 

By taking this step, agencies and creatives have committed to joining The Global Climate Strike on Friday Sept 27 in The Hague, and signing onto existing initiatives The Creative Climate Disclosure and Create and Strike. Pointing to existing initiatives underscores key messages from the night: to drive action over words, and join bigger movements to create one collective voice. 

In addition, in just a few days, the community has stepped up to contribute over 60 creative executions, including posters, banners and graphics that are free for anyone to download and can be used to create posters for Friday Sep 27’s Climate Strike in The Hague - and beyond. Take a look at the designs here.

Amsterdam’s WeTransfer has also contributed by offering the database of downloadable posters for the Climate Strike, on their wallpaper - urging people to participate. The creative executions - and declaration of an emergency - prove that the industry is ready and willing to take action. 

Extinction Rebellion Netherlands is currently creating a brief for Amsterdam's creative industry - everyone who is part of Creatives for Climate - or anyone who is interested can respond.

It will be a creative brief relating to communication around the upcoming International Rebellion Week (starting October 7) and specifically the Dutch activities which will be a large scale protest which will take place in front of the city's monumental Rijksmuseum - a mass action of civil disobedience organised in sync with other cities across the world including London, NYC, Berlin, Paris, Sydney, Melbourne.

Jessica Hartley, managing partner at The Humblebrag and Co-initiator of the Summit says: “This isn’t about naming and shaming. None of us are ‘clean’. It’s about realising we have a powerful voice, and that we need to use our craft for the right reasons.

"It’s about saying no and that’s not something we’re used to in this business. What happens when we say NO to a brief? What happens when we refuse to work on certain brands? What happens when we don’t turn up to work during the climate strike on Friday the 27th? Only then will these conversations go upstream to the decision-makers who can make a difference on a board level. That’s what we hope for.”

Alex Weller, marketing director, Patagonia, says: “Marketers, creatives, strategists and designers, are in a unique position. We have the ideas and the tools to mobilise citizens in defence of the planet. As a professional community we must take action and the time is now.

“We must ask ourselves: What kind of future do we want to create? Do we want to be part of the status quo, or do we want to be part of something different and new?”

Mark Aink, brand activist and founder of Native Circles, says: “The world has been here for 6.4 billion years. Scale that to 46 years and we’ve been here for 4 hours. The industrial revolution only started 1 minute ago. In this minute we’ve destroyed more than half the world’s forests and animal species. As creatives we can choose how we spend our next 1 minute; do we help support or destroy our planet?”

Linda Moerland, Extinction Rebellion, says: “We’ve been pumping so much CO2 into the atmosphere that the earth is warming at an unprecedented rate; In parallel, the earth’s ecology is being destroyed and biodiversity is lost at an alarming pace. We are currently in the sixth mass extinction of our planet - radical system change alone can solve it."

Check out the database of free images here. And then commit to action!

If anyone wants more information or would like to get involved or get Extinction Rebellion Netherlands' brief into their inbox they can email Creatives for Climate here.