Andrew Wanliss-Orlebar

Sustainability Strategist

City:

London

Age:

Country:

Andrew is English, but spent his youth with his parents in France. Growing up, he had some environmental awareness, but did not plan a career or a life in the field. After going to university, he kept in touch with his friends, and was impressed by their level of material success and interested in who had bought a new car. Until one day he wasn’t. Without realising it, he had shifted his value system, and was much more interested in quality of life, seeing if his friends were happy and having meaningful relationships.

“There are amazing statistics on how quickly happiness and wellbeing, and how much money you earn decouple”

After trying working in advertising for a summer, a job that was disappointing to Andrew and had little meaning to him, he moved towards making his own business and to advising companies. His focus, looking for solutions to make a real difference in how business models are currently constructed.

"Pretty much nothing we do is remotely sustainable- so we have to rethink everything we do. I can’t think of a more exciting brief"

Andrew has also found ways to make not only his work, but also his life more sustainable and meaningful. He has renovated his home and taken a number of energy saving measures. He is also creative in finding a mix of second hand furniture, in salvaging material to make something himself, and buying environmentally friendly products (see more on Andrew’s home). He hardly goes to the supermarket, and only cooks vegetarian in his home. There are several farmers markets and local shops close to where he lives so that makes it both nicer and an easier experience than going to the supermarket.

"I started examining needs versus wants. I made a list of things I really wanted, and wouldn’t touch it for a month. Then when I looked at the list again, I could cross over a lot of the stuff, like that guitar I had really wanted earlier was less important a month later"

focus:

ecology, economy, society

Level of activity:

behaviour change, small-medium actions

keywords:

activism, business-model innovation, collaboration, resilience, sharing, wellbeing