Purpose Disruptors, the UK-based non-profit founded by ad industry insiders, has launched in Australia and New Zealand and will be led by James Greet. The Australian office is the first regional hub outside of the UK and Ireland.
Greet, who becomes regional lead, has more than two decades of experience in the industry, leading some of the country’s most influential agencies, including turning OMD into Agency of the Decade and Mindshare ANZ into its global office of the year.
“As home to the world’s oldest continuous living civilisation we are arguably the original home of sustainable living. We should embrace that with pride and strive to be leaders for the future. Marketing and advertising can accelerate that change and we at Purpose Disruptors can be that catalyst,” Greet said
“Investor pressure, rising cost of basics such as food, energy and insurance, recently introduced government regulation, workforce pressure, increasing litigation. All are contributing to the growing surround sound of pressure forcing companies to react quickly to the risk and opportunity created by a warming planet.”
Up to now, the industry conversation on climate has been somewhat muted in spite of climate change accelerating,
While agencies focus on AI integration, a bigger transition is coming down the track and Purpose Disruptors said that it will make sure the Australian ad industry doesn’t get left behind.
Purpose Disruptors was founded six years ago in the UK with a clear vision: an advertising industry that works in harmony with the natural world. To transform into an industry that fundamentally redirects its influence from extraction toward regeneration.
With a community of over 10,000 marketing, media and advertising professionals, Purpose Disruptors has built the tools, research and community infrastructure to make that shift possible. It now brings that work to the Asia-Pacific region, where the stakes – and the opportunity – are as high as anywhere.
Purpose Disruptors operates across three interconnected streams of work:
- Culture with Agency for Nature: A groundbreaking initiative that asks what it would look like if advertising was in service to life on Earth. It invites the industry to create a new cultural story about what a good life really means.
- Policy with Advertised Emissions: Purpose Disruptors’ pioneering research framework that measures the carbon footprint driven by the consumption that advertising drives. At a time when Australian businesses face their first year of mandatory climate reporting, this work is no longer theoretical. It is the kind of accountability the industry must be ready for.
- Capacity Building with ChangeTheBrief: The celebrated flagship sustainability learning programme ChangeTheBrief was developed by Purpose Disruptors for marketing and advertising professionals. Described by industry leaders as “a game-changer — something every marketer should do.”The programme equips them with the skills to adapt their work to promote the sustainable lifestyles urgently needed in society.
The programme has been adopted by the ‘big six’ ad holding companies as well as leading Independent media and creative agencies across UK and Europe, and endorsed by the advertising trade bodies. More recently it has been trialled by DDB Sydney.
“I’ve always believed that creativity is the most powerful force in business and so I was thrilled and proud to lead the piloting of #CTB with DDB Sydney here in the southern hemisphere. I’d wholly encourage others in the industry to get on board too,” said Leif Stromnes, who was DDB’s strategy chief until joining Saatchi & Saatchi last November.
Australia position in the global climate story is unique. It is home to the world’s oldest continuous living civilisation, arguably the original home of sustainable living, shaped over 60,000 years of deep relationship with nature.
And yet if the world consumed the way modern Australian society does today, we would need four planets to sustain it. That gap between ancient wisdom and contemporary consumption is not accidental and Purpose Disruptors believe that the desire for high-carbon lifestyles is driven and amplified by the advertising industry.
“The advertising industry has one of the most powerful tools available in the transition to a sustainable economy: the ability to shift what people desire. ChangeTheBrief exists to help people in our industry use that tool deliberately. Australia has a deep talent pool, a passionate community, and with James leading the work there, exactly the right person to build something meaningful,” said Rob McFaul, co-founder of Purpose Disruptors.
