Purpose Disruptors – SFCT at 50

Like many great ideas, Purpose Disruptors began in a pub. Co-founders Jonathan Wise, Rob McFaul, and Lisa Merrick-Lawless – successful advertising professionals – gathered to discuss concerns about their industry’s impact on climate change. It’s a tension that, for those involved with selling products and increasing carbon emissions, was easy to empathise with.

Purpose Disruptors quickly grew as a movement, and by the time of the Covid-19 lockdowns in 2020, was developing its first major campaign. The Great Reset examined the impact of the pandemic in slowing down ‘business as usual’. It invited people to reflect on which parts of their pandemic experiences they wanted to retain in a post-pandemic world which, inevitably, would be seeking greater consumption to ameliorate coronavirus’s financial impact.

Continuing as a powerful force within advertising, Purpose Disruptors develops initiatives, tools, and interventions to transition the industry towards a thriving future. Alongside the econometrics agency Magic Numbers, it introduced the new metric ‘Advertised Emissions’ at COP26 in Glasgow. Its 2022 report revealed the advertising sector’s responsibility for 208 million tonnes of CO2 emissions and has been adopted by the UN Race to Zero initiative.

The JJ Charitable Trust collaborates closely with Purpose Disruptors, providing ongoing support and learning from the movement’s development. The Trust’s Trustees are interested in culture change within sectors like finance, education, and advertising, recognising the potential for significant shifts in systems.

While tensions exist within a profit-seeking sector, Purpose Disruptors’ work provides a valuable space for industry leaders to be ambitious, ask questions, and collaborate on climate crisis solutions.

Purpose Disruptors also aims to create a culture where advertisers see themselves as agents of change, notably through their flagship sustainability learning programme, Change the Brief Alliance. The programme up-skills professionals with the knowledge to help bring about rapid behavioural shifts needed for a sustainable future.

Purpose Disruptors invites the advertising industry to reshape the idea of a ‘good life’ through their Good Life 2030 Project. Rooted in citizen insights, the project promotes lives connected to self, others, and nature instead of one based on wealth, status and material consumption. It has impacted millions and resulted in an exhibition at Tate Modern. The recent campaign from the Agency for Nature received acclaim in publications like Vogue, Business Green, and Mashable.