Embarking on Prophet’s Sustainability Journey

In 2020, Prophet embarked on a sustainability journey to assess our climate choices and identify steps we can take towards a greener future. We partnered with South Pole to understand our current environmental impacts, see how we stack up against peers and identify potential areas for improvement. Over the last year, we have gone through piles of data and reports from our enterprise-wide audit across global offices to understand Prophet’s carbon emissions and climate change risks.

SBT’s. GHG. CO2te. Net-Zero. Scopes 1-3. What does this all mean? How does a circular design affect the way we look at our economy? How do we interpret the results of our GHG emission report to guide climate actions? How do we inspire our people to act and have a tangible impact on our clients and in our communities? These are just some of the questions we’ve been asking since we began our sustainability journey and Earth Month presented an opportunity to pose these questions to our larger community at Prophet. We knew it was critical to engage Propheteers to share Prophet’s progress in our sustainability journey and be a part of the conversation.

Earth Month Recap

One day is simply not enough to immerse in conservation and celebrate this beautiful planet we call home. So, with Earth Day on April 22nd, the Prophet Impact Sustainability Team took Propheteers on a month-long sustainability journey. This April, we spotlighted Mother Earth through a variety of programming to spark learning, conversation and action around sustainability across the firm.

Our first event was an inspiring start to Earth Month and exposed Propheteers to the different actors that are working together to slow down the negative impacts of climate change. Special guest panelists, Marc O’Brien, Co-founder of Climate Designers, Rosalia Lugo, Environmental Health Activist, Austin Whitman, Founder and CEO of Climate Neutral, and our very own Tosson El Noshokaty, Founding Partner and Advisor for Good Carbon and Oceans2050, shared their perspectives on the climate crisis and how they are leading a more sustainable future across sectors.

Our second educational event was all about circular design. Propheteers learned about shifting to a circular economy and key design principles to create more sustainable products, services and solutions. Propheteers had a chance to break out into small groups and ideate around a real-life design challenge to apply these circular design principles and learn how these concepts might play into our lives and work at Prophet. We also shared some of the client stories that put sustainability at the center: from working with a nonprofit to protect biodiversity in Vietnam, to partnering with a high growth organization focused on building a sustainable and productive food system, to envisioning a fast-food brand’s future kitchen where material and energy waste is designed out.

Our final event looked internally and provided Propheteers with an overview of our sustainability journey from the South Pole team. Propheteers gained insight into key climate terms like Scope 1-2-3 emissions, carbon credits, and net-zero. In addition to sharing Prophet’s GHG footprint from 2019 and 2020, we also began to explore what actions we might take to start reducing our carbon footprint such as setting a science-based target, leveraging renewable energy, and investing in climate credits.

“We know that our own sustainability journey can always be enhanced and Prophet and our clients can continue to do better for our planet.”

Alongside these educational events, we held an Earth Day Every Day photo challenge, where Propheteers were invited to submit photos in three categories: #Act Now, #Natural Beauty and #Nature Selfie. From photos of a glacier park in Iceland to the mighty Iguazu Falls, Propheteers captured the scenic wonders of our Planet. There were also photos of trash piling up in Hawai’i and an overflowing makeshift trash can that highlighted the urgent need to take action now to build a greener future together. Propheteers across the firm also gathered with their local office teammates in person and virtually to celebrate Earth Day. There was fun to be had- from panting succulents to enjoying a plant-based meal together, to participating in a sustainability-themed trivia.

Prophet’s Next Steps

So where are going from here?

At the individual level, we hope that Earth Month inspired Propheteers around what it means to live more sustainably. Many have committed to making more sustainable choices daily and volunteering their time to participate in sustainability-focused activities during our upcoming Prophet Impact Day.

At the firm level, Prophet will be continuing to partner with South Pole to declare a greenhouse gas reduction goal (e.g., Net Zero), and subsequently develop sustainability strategies and a roadmap to reduce our carbon footprint. On the client-side, Prophet has dedicated resources to building a suite of ESG offers to help business leaders apply a systems thinking mindset that involves the planet and elevates sustainability in their organizations. ESG efforts will be critical to making sustainability more “real” across the business world.

Finally, at the global level, we will continue to spotlight and drive action for more sustainable practices, both within our firm, to our clients and to our networks. We know that our own sustainability journey can always be enhanced and Prophet and our clients can continue to do better for our planet.

During the past month, there was no shortage of memes and think pieces discussing the temporary nature of the celebration of pride, especially for corporate entities. When July 1 hit, the rainbows came down and most were none the wiser. Like all celebratory months or days that acknowledge otherwise underrepresented groups, there’s always a question about why we only do this for a part of the year. Why not celebrate year-round? We’re gay or lesbian or bi or transgender or an ally 365 days a year. The tokenization of minorities of all kinds has come to be an unfortunate hallmark of today’s corporate culture even as businesses invest in diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and education.

Pride at Prophet has been in existence for a few years. Prior to the formation of any ERGs (employee resource groups) at Prophet, there was a general shared sense of wellbeing for LGBTQIA+ employees because of the composition of our leadership team, the firm’s clear investment in pro-bono work for relevant causes and the visible sense of recognition that comes with seeing others like you. As the firm grew, a clear need to better acknowledge different, diverse cohorts within the organization became clear, and over the last three years several different affinity groups have naturally— and intentionally —formed to make an impact at Prophet.

“A clear need to better acknowledge different, diverse cohorts within the organization became clear, and over the last three years several different affinity groups have naturally— and intentionally —formed to make an impact at Prophet.”

We’ve celebrated pride as an organization in different ways for many years, but given remote work life, Prophet decided to take a broader approach to Pride Month celebrations this year. With local office teams unable to come together physically, we curated a program of blog posts, panel discussions, virtual events and playlists that put a spotlight on a community that is as diverse as it is unique. But what the program mainly did was show that every part of our business, every region, every role, includes members of the “community.”  More than 10% of our firm’s employees directly contributed to this month’s content, highlighting the broad depth of experiences embedded within our company and presenting opportunities for allies to engage, learn, support and uplift LGBTQIA+ community members in various forums.

Panel Discussion: ‘Queer in Consulting’

One of the most impactful events was a panel discussion that featured firm leaders and hit on topics including what it’s like to be “queer” in consulting. It featured U.S. and European managers and partners and spanned across our corporate, strategy, design, digital and delivery teams. The conversation reflected on the unique but shared experiences of panelists while highlighting the diversity of their experiences. Overall, the sentiment conveyed by our panelists was the idea of being extremely lucky — lucky for having professionally grown up in industries in which it wasn’t necessarily hard or at least a not big deal to be gay, and lucky for having found a workplace that always encourages its employees to bring their full, true and complete selves to their job.

Many of our attendees found it eye-opening to hear panelists discuss experiences like having to come out again and again to new teams and clients. One of our panelists spoke about being “in and out” as he transitioned through different companies and roles until he got to the point in his professional and personal development where code-switching was no longer an option. From day one of joining Prophet, he belonged in a culture where he felt truly embraced, if not celebrated. Another panelist talked about the “boys club” environment of the ad world that had surrounded him for most of his career. This made him prioritize finding a workplace that fostered a more diverse environment and eventually led him to become a Propheteer.

A third panelist recalled a statement he had to make during his interview process. In the interview, the panelist explained that he wouldn’t be successful if the firm expected him to change who he fundamentally is and how he expresses himself. For many of us, it’s taken a lifetime to build up the strength and confidence to be our best selves at work. Uncomfortable questions are asked by clients, colleagues make assumptions, we sometimes find ourselves in situations where we feel we don’t belong.  Creating a comfortable environment for everyone no matter how they identify is something we are committed to as a firm.

In the spring of 2000, I was approached by a colleague and friend to consider doing some pro-bono work for a small nonprofit with a critical strategy project. I was caught off guard. Our company, relaunched as Prophet Brand in 1999, was in the middle of its first growth surge, powered by David Aaker’s global brand guru status and the Dot.com investment boom. As a young, fast-growing firm, we were having a hard time establishing our culture, growing our team, defining our methodologies and driving high-quality work for paying clients. I struggled to envision how we would be able to free up the time and resources to also do high-quality work for pro-bono clients. My mid-30’s CEO mindset sensed that this was a luxury we couldn’t afford. Luckily for me, this Prophet colleague – Cathy Halligan – didn’t give up. She was determined to help me see why doing this kind of work was consistent with our aspiration as a firm and my hopes as a leader.

The nonprofit organization had a passionate leadership team that enabled some of the only visible wins for its movement in the United States. But, it found itself at a crossroads. Its talented executive director, team and board needed to figure out how to capitalize on its strengths and build a story that would help power the organization and its resources to more transformational impact. As Cathy Halligan consistently argued, Prophet circa 2000 had exactly the right mix of expertise and perspective to help solve this problem. If we weren’t ready to generously apply our time and talents to helping change leaders answer their hardest brand and narrative questions, what were we here for?

Her persuasive words and spirit have stayed with me to this day. Cathy’s determined efforts led us to shape our first pro-bono project in the fall of 2000 with The Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund. It was the first of what’s become a series of Prophet pro-bono efforts to support a range of US organizations committed to advancing LGBTQ+ civil rights in the United States and globally.

Starting Our Work With LGBTQ+ Civil Rights

It may be hard to remember the state of the LGBTQ+ civil rights movement at the turn of the century. Bill Clinton had signed the Defense of Marriage Act into law in 1996, stating that marriage could only be between one man and one woman. At the state level, many anti-LGBTQ+ laws and ballot measures were getting passed left, right and center. Also, the AIDS crisis was still roiling the broader LGBTQ+ community. Times felt dark.

The single bright spot of progress was in the courts, where courageous citizens and their lawyers were bringing legal challenges to some of the most oppressive anti-LGBT laws. Lambda Legal and some of its allies were the driving forces behind this strategy. They would identify the most egregious laws that allowed for discrimination in employment, housing, healthcare, education, etc., or that still criminalized consensual LGBTQ+ relationship behavior between consenting adults, find plaintiffs who would sue the government asserting that these laws were unconstitutional, and then provide the plaintiffs with all the legal support needed to execute the cases. Through this strategy, Lambda Legal helped win the first HIV/AIDS discrimination case in the 1980s, won a historical legal precedent holding schools accountable for harassment and violence against LGBTQ+ students in the 1990s and achieved broad progress on so many other legal battlefields.

But the organization was made up of lawyers using lawyer-speak in all their communications, was chronically under-funded and was not well-known or understood even within the LGBTQ+ community, let alone the broader public. Our job was to help them land on an aspirational purpose, brand strategy, narrative and roadmap that would help elevate its impact, enable transformative change, dramatically increase its donor base and elevate its reputation among the broader movement.

We unlocked a critical insight – most people didn’t understand how the outcomes of Lambda’s work would impact the everyday lives of LGBTQ+ people, families and communities. We needed to help them turn their legal strategies into human stories told through the faces and voices of those directly affected. We needed to help them develop a storyline that up-leveled the context of their work – to help people understand how making progress through the courts was an essential building block to advance the movement’s broader civil rights agenda. The selected strategy created a second major plank for the organization – a commitment to investing in dialogue-shaping education, as well as precedent-setting litigation in the pursuit of social justice. The way in which it was embraced and executed fundamentally changed the character and trajectory of Lambda Legal, elevating its influence, dramatically increasing its fundraising prowess and growing its capacity and resources to drive transformative change.

Adding on to the Movement

Later that decade, we found another organization in the LGBTQ+ movement – Equality California –  a trailblazer with charismatic leadership and an excellent track record of advancing the most comprehensive set LGBTQ+ legal protections passed by elected officials and politicians anywhere in the United States. Prophet aligned itself to support Equality California when the organization and the movement were at an incredibly low point. Many were blaming the organization for losing the “No on Prop 8” anti-gay marriage California ballot initiative in the 2008 election, in effect ripping away hard-earned marriage rights and putting the legal status of 18,000 same-sex marriages from the previous 4 months in limbo.

Equality California had to learn to acknowledge the mistakes with grace and humility while finding a new way forward. We dug deep to unlock a new set of insights across an array of stakeholders and learned that there was an opportunity to reposition the organization as a champion for full equality for LGBTQ+ Californians, not just same-sex marriage. Getting legal rights was not enough if it didn’t lead to a pervasive change in the “lived” experiences of LGBTQ+ citizens across all dimensions of their lives. And that marriage, while important, was only one of the vital steps in this path to full “lived’ equality.

This kicked off what turned out to be a 10-year plus relationship with leadership at Equality California. Over the course of our partnership, we found many ways to support its leaders and its mission. For example, we helped provide detailed insights work to understand how to shift perceptions of potential allies and voters as LGBTQ+ civil rights were tested through ballot propositions. We also helped with donor growth strategies and volunteer mobilization campaigns.

In 2017 and 2018, we helped the next generation of leaders unlock a new purpose and story for Equality California after the marriage question had been settled. What should “full and lasting” equality look like? There were still dramatic disparities in the health and wellbeing of the community and continuous attacks on the gains that had been achieved. How could Equality California become a movement builder, intersectional and inclusive in nature, and fit for a new era of digital activism, grassroots energy and urgent necessity? We helped them answer these questions, and then retooled the brand along with its look and feel to reflect the new strategy. “Until the work is done” became the phrase that captured the spirit and the intention of this team.

Celebrating 20 Years of Giving Back

While these stories spotlight the bookends of 20 years’ worth of pro-bono energy and commitment to this movement, there have been many other organizations and themes that Prophet teams have touched along the way. We’ve rebranded a groundbreaking leader in its drive to create safe, respectful and healthy K-12 schools for LGBTQ+ students, helped to enrich stories for teams working to redefine LGBTQ+ images in the media and supported leaders tackling the tough issue of LGBTQ+ youth suicide rates and homelessness. No matter what the organization or the issues, committed Propheteers stepped up to the table with energy, expertise, humility and compassion to deconstruct thorny questions, unlock new insights and co-create positive strategies, programs, identities and narratives to move the work forward.

As we launch the next chapter of Prophet Impact, with three focus areas – equality, social mobility and sustainability – my hope is that we can build upon our journey within the LGBTQ+ movement, and the organizations and grassroots advocates who power it. Prophet has grown in scope and scale now, with a deeper set of capabilities to support bold organizations aspiring to drive transformative change. Our experience has taught us that it is only with sustained effort that we can hope to support these movements and organizations in our shared desire to drive enduring, meaningful change. And that we must be prepared to continue to invest, even in the face of demoralizing setbacks, fierce resistance and uneven progress.

I am grateful for Cathy Halligan’s persistence more than 20 years ago, and for all the energy that so many creative, strategic, committed teammates have put into this body of work over the years. So much effort and so much heart have been poured into our collaboration with these trailblazing organizations. Our talents elevate the impact of organizations and movements on the ground. We see firsthand the struggles and challenges these movements face in their efforts to drive systemic change. But rather than feel daunted by these realities, we bring even more determination and optimistic energy to the work at hand. We’re enriched and strengthened as professionals and humans through our shared work together – we get way more than we give.

“No matter what the organization or the issues, committed Propheteers stepped up to the table with energy, expertise, humility and compassion to deconstruct thorny questions, unlock new insights and co-create positive strategies, programs, identities and narratives to move the work forward.”