Debbie Levin discusses sustainability, Ashish Arora shares the true meaning of crafting, and it's about to get cinematic

"Our mission is to be the storytellers for the environment." With this week marking the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, this week's You've Got This features answers from the Environmental Media Association's CEO Debbie Levin. With sustainability always top of mind, Debbie shares her thoughts on why she feels videoconferencing will be a new form of media, how coronavirus is changing her approach to events, and how everyone's voice can make a difference. And don't miss the answers from our postponed interview with President & Chief Executive Officer at Cricut Ashish Arora - as well as announcing our next guest, writer, director and producer Marc Meyers.

Victoria: "From the EMA Awards to the EMA Green Seal honoring sustainable production to the EMA Impact Summit, you've helped create a variety of ways for eco-friendly messages to reach billions of people. What do you think is next in terms of environmental awareness strategy for the EMA?"

Debbie: "The EMA awards have been around for 30 years, which is amazing. Our organization is celebrating 30 years as well. We were created to promote sustainable content back when film and television and music was all that there was in media. What’s happened now in terms of communication and content has really completely changed the game. That evolution is one of the reasons we started the EMA IMPACT Summit four years ago as a two-day summit where we bring together entrepreneurs, educators, innovators, celebrities and press to communicate the achievements and innovations us to a sustainable circular economy.

 "Our mission is to be the storytellers for the environment. We work with everyone globally to tell the stories of environmental impact, achievements, and goals, through a pop-culture lens."

With our EMA IMPACT Summit, we're able to bring in the innovators of tomorrow, and because we’re storytellers, we want to tell their stories through communication as well. We've added so much over the past 30 years, and that leads me to think about where we are now. Right now we’re living with a pandemic for the first time in many generations, and we’re living through this in the age of content. Our social channels are so vibrant. Just the other day we did a Zoom chat with 15 celebrities from our board, we sent an email out asking who was around on 2 o’clock on Tuesday, and so many people said “We want to join!” So we did a Zoom chat about how right now, we need to pivot from live events, even though they’ve been a major source of funding for us. We immediately created a new platform, the Environmental Media Network. It’s something we’ve played around with for quite some time, but because we have over 115 million followers on social media through our Board members and we generate nearly 6 billion media impressions per year, we’re moving forward to build a network with our content.

Due to coronavirus we are taking a beat like the rest of the world, and because we can’t convene in groups, the Environmental Media Network and all of our celebrity supporters are putting together content. Whether it’s “how to cook a plant based cocktail” taught by Lance Bass, or Emmanuelle Chriqui making a smoothie, or Malin Akerman making healthy vegetarian soup. We have Madelaine Petsch from Riverdale, yesterday she interviewed a group called “The Knowledge Society” out of Toronto. They are incredible high school kids who consult for Fortune 500 companies. Eric Christian Olsen from NCIS Los Angeles interviewed a pediatrician from Harvard who’s on the forefront of addressing various issues of health and climate change. All of our relationships are excited about making these videos. And we of course have 4 years of content from EMA IMPACT as well, with Board member Van Jones, Gina McCarthy, EMA Board Officer Jaden Smith’s keynotes and one-on-ones and so many more.

Our role as storytellers doesn’t stop because we can’t go out of the house. It’s more important now than ever before. We’re all actually seeing the atmosphere is cleaner. The earth is really telling us something, and what it’s saying is 'it's time to think about what the new normal is, and the new normal should be sustainability.' For us to go back to a carbon technology existence just doesn’t make sense when we understand why so much of what we’re going through has to do with environmental issues."

Victoria: "As it's the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day this week, will you be doing anything special to celebrate the occasion?"

Debbie: "We’re doing a lot of content today and this week. In lieu of an event, if you go online, there are things going on all day, and with us, it’s more about doing a lot of social with the content I was talking about. I think people want to celebrate. They want to see what’s going on in terms of global achievements on Earth Day, and they also want to understand and get into the weeds a bit. We have the time to watch something that’s 45 minutes that will inspire you and get you thinking about what change you can make as an individual. "

Victoria: "In a recent presentation on Spotify, you shared that everyone can be as impactful as a celebrity in making a difference for the environment. Can you share more of the inspiration behind that speech, and what are some small steps we can all take every day towards supporting our planet?"

Debbie: "Yes. Everybody can be as impactful as a celebrity, if you think about it. At this point, we all have social influence. We all have followers. It doesn’t matter if you have 10 followers, 50 followers, or 50,000 followers. What you use your voice to do, if you impact one person, you’re making a huge difference. Use your platforms to have fun, but also to share your values. Hopefully the people who follow you are aligned with your values anyway, and if you’re able to share ideas about sustainability, and give them ideas, think about the impact you have. That’s huge. So I think this is a world where we’re all influencers, in a sense."

From strategic consultant Alana Anderson: "1) Who (or what sources) do you recommend we follow within the rising generation of environmental journalists? 2) If you could re-share any story from 2019, what would it be and why? 3) What does the future of environmental media look like in 20 or 50 years? (paperless print? Plantable newspaper?)"

Debbie: "You know, there’s a lot of environmental journalists. There’s always NYTimes, Bloomberg, The Guardian always has great environmental articles. But I will say that the Today Show’s Al Roker, the weather guy, he - for the last several years - has been doing stories on climate CONSTANTLY. And that’s an audience that is so broad, they may not know to go to journalists we’re talking about, but if they hear his reporting every morning, that impact is huge, and completely different than on social media, whom we’re talking to all the time. If our responsibility is to speak broadly in a pop culture way, it’s gotta be voices that appeal to all ages and an audience that may not be as aware.

"It’s really important to us to remember that if we only speak to the people who agree with us, we aren’t changing anybody’s minds. Climate change affects everybody in their home every day. And on the flip side, we can all make changes every day and own our power."

Read the labels of your cleaning products. For example, we work with ECOS, and their products are 100% plant-based. When you buy skincare products, or buy a car, we helped launch the Toyota Prius 20 years ago, that was such a great lesson for me in learning how corporations can help educate people and shift habits, because if you’re buying a Prius, you’re probably using reusable bags, or shopping for organic food. We’ve been working with H&M to use 100% organic cotton this year, and in 5 years, they will be circular, so that all their products will be either reused or from plant-based materials. With their garment recycling program at all their stores, you are able to recycle any fabric garments, any old materials including sheets and towels, and those items will be transformed to new collections and fabrics. We’re so lucky to be able to talk about these positive things going on.

As far as re-sharing any story, I’m obsessed with our EMA IMPACT Summit. This is 2 days of the most incredible entrepreneurs and celebrities and innovators. We do a “future innovator of the year” challenge. It’s like Shark Tank, but all green innovators from all over the world, pitching to a judging panel of entrepreneurs, celebrities, and brilliant businesspeople. We narrow down from thousands of pitches online to six pitches for the event, and at the end of the first day, all six pitch to us, we eliminate three, have a final three, and the last day before we close the summit, they pitch their hearts out for a $50,000 grant while the audience waits. We then announce the winner onstage and close IMPACT Summit with it. It’s a magical time for us. For the last four years, we’ve been working with these six finalists, and this last year, one of our final three also won a huge grant from the H&M foundation. And they met at our Impact Summit. And that’s so gratifying I can’t even tell you. That’s what we do this for. We really just want to make sure that anything we can do to get these innovators out there, we are doing, because that’s what we need for our future.

For the future of environmental media, I hate to say it, but I feel like there will be more Zooms! I think we’re going to be really doing a lot of video conferencing, video and experiential communication. I think VR in whatever form is probably going to be very accessible and much more interactive, in terms of environmental content (all content really). When we talk about the Amazon rainforest, we’ll be able to be there virtually from our homes, and we’ll be able to understand issues or successes that happen on our planet. That’s what it feels like to me, even knowing that I’ve been running EMA for the past 20 years - looking at what we were able to do in 2000 and what we’re doing in 2020, it’s completely different, but the energy is the same."

Follow Debbie on LinkedIn.

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Ashish Arora, President and CEO of Cricut, was able to jump on the phone with me this week as well to go through our interview questions from earlier this month.

Victoria: "You recently shared on LinkedIn that over 130,000 face masks have been made and cut using Cricut machines, with more being made every day. How do you see the maker and crafting community joining in coronavirus efforts? "

Ashish: "Since that initial post, our mask count has significantly increased. As of this morning, we can report that over 800,000 patterns were cut on Cricut machines by over 100,000 people! This means that the number of masks being made are probably already in the millions, because some of our members make cuts based on just one pattern. Very early on, when COVID-19 first started spreading, we saw that our members were channeling their creative energy into mask making and really rally, even before the CDC had provided guidelines on fabric masks and how to make masks. Since then, we’ve taken the CDC guidelines into consideration to provide various design patterns, so individuals with different skill levels could cut mask elements, not just masks, but ear protectors and savers, on their machines, and also without.

For me, what’s fascinating is the story behind the story: We published a story a few days ago about one community member, Nancy, who’s made 1,000 masks for military families. Another community member, Jessica, her husband works for the local FedEx station, and she made hundreds of masks for them. Every day, I find and read tons of new and meaningful stories, with people sharing on both the company’s social media pages and my personal accounts, filled with details of what they’re making for their friends, family, essential workers, and their community groups. There are about 800,000 law enforcement workers in the US, and I’ve also seen our community making masks for police or other law enforcement workers in addition to the frontline. We’re equally proud and humbled by what the community is doing. 

"I see these mask-making efforts, as part of a much bigger phenomenon happening. People are designing their windows to uplift their neighbors, putting hearts, positive messages and other decorations in their windows. Members have been adding nice messages on their mailboxes and making thank you cards on our machines. What we’re seeing is that crafting (and any creative hobby) enables people to put forth this generosity and kindness that is probably more needed now than ever in today’s world." 

Victoria: "Where do you see the intersection of business and community building going in the future?

Ashish: "We’ve always seen a huge intersection between our business and community building. I joined the company in 2012, and really took it upon myself to make sure that we anchored the company around 3 major pillars—I call them the 3 C’s of modern internet companies: content, commerce, and community, which I believe are the fundamental pillars of that magical trifecta. 

"As a company, I consider Cricut to be a content company first and foremost. We enable commerce, and we do this around a community."

And that applies to all social platforms. I’m particularly active on LinkedIn, and I’ve talked about what role LinkedIn plays for me and our company. But in our consumer world, for our members, we see a lot of them coalescing around this need to affiliate with each other. So I think it’s more important than ever for businesses to enable communities and relationships. There are so many outcomes that come from that—from increasing awareness to gathering insights. I spend about an hour, an hour and a half, every day on social platforms, just listening to our members and understanding how they interact with each other. All of that leads to brand loyalty and, in the end, business results. With LinkedIn, our community is enabled there. 

“Community” is a generic word we use, but there are many levels and layers of communities. They can be around your user base, your employees and how they interact with each other, or a community around retailers, store managers, and the store employees who serve the end users. In the consumer space, consumer communities, we are a brand that has hundreds of thousands of communities that range from a few hundred people to hundreds of thousands, across geography and interests. And our ethos as a brand is to be genuine, enable those community conversations and participate in them. Doing so creates a layer of transparency that ultimately becomes an anchor of business—a platform where buyers, retailers, and key stakeholders can all understand what the brand is doing. It’s even more meaningful for our business, and even more so now that people find themselves socially distant. People want to be part of a community in which a business provides a layer of transparency.

Our members leverage our machines for a hobby - teachers for schools, moms who create projects for their kids - but it goes beyond that. As people are home alone, let go from their jobs or put on furlough, we see more members using our machines for business. 25% of our members buy our machines so they can create a side business, and today, that side business has become an integral part of their lives, able to keep them intellectually occupied and generate some income. While 95-98% of the masks our members make are donated, some members of our community are making businesses on Etsy or Facebook marketplace or other business platforms."

Victoria: "Why do you think that crafting and creating are such a source of happiness for so many people?"

Ashish: "Well, you know, it’s probably one of the things that attracted me to the industry. I’ve been in many different industries, and one of the things I’ve found to be of most import, is not just doing a job, but being passionate and finding a sense of purpose. That embodies the soul of crafting. While it’s true for crafting, and perhaps other creative hobbies, at the heart of crafting is the idea of giving. People make crafts, in some sense, for their own selves, and to a large extent, they do it because they want to make something for somebody. Very few products and brands make people feel the way that Cricut and other crafting hobbies do. It gives people a sense of accomplishment. It’s something like therapy, a personal time where they indulge themselves, for the benefit of others. And that’s why we have such an emotional relationship with our community.

"While the things they make may be somewhat functional - a mug, a shirt you wear- the core essence and overall gestalt of the emotion is accomplishment, pride, and how therapeutic it is to make things for other people. And I think that creates a very deep relationship with a brand."

I always tell people that “there are a lot of products that are about speeds and feeds, and are rational or functional purchases. There are very few brands that go for the heart.” I think Cricut is one of those brands, where the role we play in people’s lives gives them a sense of gratification and creates such a deep bond with the brand in the process."

Follow Ashish on LinkedIn.

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Next week's guest: Marc Meyers

I'm excited about our next guest, multi-talented NYC-based film director, producer and screenwriter Marc Meyers. He has directed three feature films over the last fourteen months: All My Life (currently in post production), the TIFF-premiered Human Capital, and the recently released We Summon The Darkness. With a critically acclaimed background, here's what I'll be asking Marc:

• You've worked (or are working) on projects across a wide variety of genres. What is it that appeals to you about working on a horror-comedy project versus a dramatic film?
• Do you think that that being based in Brooklyn brings a unique energy to your films?
• How do you see the film industry changing around coronavirus-related production changes, filming precautions, and closures? Do you think we'll see more filmmakers communicating directly with fans and increasingly digitally-focused releases?

I invite you to ask your questions for Marc below - and thank you for reading!