Cyrill at Virgin Disruptors
One area where we've become truly disruptive as a species is in the very ecosystem that enables our survival: The Oceans.
In an age of near-ubiquitous connectivity and information, paradoxically marked by a pattern of fading attention spans, impactful messaging demands brevity. Why do we need the oceans? There are many answers to that question, some of them more complex than others. All of them can be summed up in six words:
“If the oceans die, we die.”
Parley Founder Cyrill Gutsch came to understand the weight of this fact upon meeting the legendary activist Captain Paul Watson, founder of Sea Shepherd and co-founder of Greenpeace, in 2012. In the same conversation, he learned the oceans are dying—and we are running out of time to save them.
Some post "mind bomb" introspection led Cyrill to examine what role he, as a designer and brand strategist, might play in the solution. He decided to found Parley as a collaborative platform for the creative industries, the group that had been sorely missing from the environmental cause and surrounding conversation. Parley became the space where creators, thinkers, and leaders from seemingly disparate parties can think and act together to make peace with our life support system. That space has since grown into a global network and movement, but we’ve only just begun.
Every second breath we take is generated by life in the oceans. That life is threatened by faulty business systems and an outdated, fossil fuel-based “superstar” of a design failure: plastic. But in every failure lies opportunity. Fixing this mess isn't just our responsibility, it's good business.
Together with our partners, we approach long-term solutions via eco innovation, an alternative to the more stagnant path of sustainability. Our comprehensive Ocean Plastic Program guided by the Parley A.I.R. Strategy (Avoid, Intercept, Redesign) forms an approach with creativity and collaboration at its crux.
On October 3, Cyrill joined change-makers at the Virgin Disruptors 2016 conference in London, where he explained our mission to protect marine life and plan to stem the plastic tide.
Watch Cyrill's talk here:
Learn more about the Virgin Disruptors conference
(Image credit: Adam Slama)
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