Bridget Williams, CEO and Founder of social enterprise Bead and Proceed, knows a fair bit about the UN Sustainable Development Goals. In fact, she’s based her entire business around them and getting creative with beads.
The story of Bridget Williams and Bead and Proceed
Bridget has always had a real love of both creativity and nature. While she has been able to combine these two passions in more recent years, Bridget didn’t always recognise and value her creativity as a strength.
“Even though I recognise and value it now, I didn’t always when I was younger, for some reason being described as the creative one, almost started to sound like a backhanded compliment. It’s like as a society, creativity wasn’t always something that was seen as like a ticket to a good job (…) I put creativity in a box. I didn’t see it serving me as I got older. So when I decided what career path I wanted, I went for a more ‘sensible’ option.”
This saw Bridget pursue law as she did see there being some connection between creativity and the idea of needing to problem solve, and that it is quite theatrical in the sense of presenting in court. But in reality, behind the scenes, there was a lot that was not creative at all. She studied law at the University of Canterbury where she got a scholarship, followed by a summer clerk and grad position at a great law firm where she worked for three years. In her own words, she ‘was the lawyer I had always, or at least thought I, wanted to be. But I quickly realised that law did not come naturally to me’.
“I had a bad day in court. I made a beaded necklace to put my frustration into something positive. I realize there’s real power in making time with creativity. You know, painting, making, getting messy all of that, and then discovered the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals, realised that there was an awesome connection of creativity, and play and workshopping with this really amazing framework.”
From there Bead and Proceed was born: a social enterprise that exists to educate peoople on the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals, and to inspire action towards them through creativity. Bridget facilitates this in a few ways; but one of the core ways is to bring people together to make and paint a 5-beaded necklace, bracelet or key ring in the top five SDGs that they care about personally, and while they are painting and creating, they are discussing, ideating and strategising ways to weave sustainability through their business, workplace, organisation or daily life. Another core part of Bead and Proceed for Bridget is making sure that she ‘walked the sustainable development goals talk’ so everything with Bead and Proceed is sustainably and ethically sourced, and for every kit purchased, one is given to a low decile school. Bridget has now expanded beyond workshops and kits to conference offerings on a larger scale, providing a tactile and creative way to engage people in thinking about sustainability. “…it’s just sort of gone way beyond the beads. I mean the beads are just a tool to help extract that authentic discussion and create safe space to you know, unlock ideas and strategies. But yeah, it’s gone far beyond just a necklace that I painted one day after a bad day in court.”
A key takeaway from Bridget’s journey to where she is today is that she tried to box her strength of creativity away because she didn’t see it as something that was valued or indicative of a sensible career path, but she left us with some great advice reflecting on her journey.
“I do believe that your strengths will eventually come knocking. You know, you can put them in a box. You can pretend like they don’t exist, but honestly, when we are living our fullest, most authentic self, it is when we are harnessing the power of our strengths and ideally if we can use them as a force for good, then even better.”
Sustainability and the UN Sustainable Development Goals
When asked what sustainability means to her, Bridget responded:
“So, for me, sustainability is it comes down to intergenerational justice. We have to manage our economy in such a way that, you know, leaves enough resource for the future, but I don’t think it stops there with, you know, enough resource. I think it’s about making sure you know we have sufficient resource for the future to not just survive, but to thrive. That is how I see sustainability: that intergenerational justice piece and what that looks like is combining all areas of sustainability, economic, social and environmental, because it’s all interconnected.”
These interconnections are also evident in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In 2015 the SDGs were adopted as a blueprint for a global undertaking to ensure a sustainable world, with a timeline of 15 years (until 2030) to achieve these goals. A key feature of these goals is that they speak an international language, with all 193 UN member states, including New Zealand, adopting the goals in 2015. “This idea of a global undertaking makes it really not only symbolically really beautiful, but also really helpful for businesses and organisations that are wanting to communicate what are their sustainable values and sustainable strengths, and how they’re wanting to make their sustainable impact in the world, and they can communicate it globally as this is the largest framework globally for sustainability”.
The goals also come back to that core value of interconnection that Bridget highlighted in her response to what sustainability means to her, meaning that the framework is relevant to every industry. Another key thing about the SDGs that Bridget mentions is that “although they are sort of an initiative that came from the United Nations, they are not owned by the UN, no one owns them, so you could say that everyone owns them, so everyone has a responsibility to act in the SDG’s whether you’re an individual, a school, a non-profit, business, local/national government; we all have a responsibility and because there is an element like no one’s overseeing the SDG’s right, it means there’s also a bit of flexibility and autonomy around how we can get there.”
Of the 17 SDGs, the most important to Bridget is SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals. She defines it as ‘the glue between each goal’.
“So visually it’s this beautiful, you know, dark blue colour, but more importantly, the message behind partnerships for the goals is that important notion that we can’t do this alone: if we want to action all of the SDG’s, we must work in collaboration and we must work together. And I see partnerships with the goals as being my way through Bean and Proceed to partner, connect, and engage with people and organisations and businesses to connect with the relevant SDG’s that they want to champion.”
Whether it’s through what sustainability means to her, or her work with the goals, Bridget really highlights the value and importance of being aware of interconnections and creating strong partnerships in the way in which we approach sustainability. An awareness of these interconnections and of engaging in partnerships only results in further expansion of our thinking and response to issues regarding sustainability, and it is something we can all aspire to do more of.
The challenge facing agriculture when it comes to sustainability, and how this brings opportunity
The number one challenge Bridget is hearing from her clients and organisations in the agriculture space when it comes to sustainability is people who understand the sector most having the autonomy to weave sustainability into their practices. Structures are being imposed on farmers and businesses that become something that needs to be survived, however, there is opportunity with autonomy over how they weave sustainability into their approaches to bring a flexible and creative approach to it. Bridget emphasises that the SDG framework can be a great way for people to do that.
So, this is a framework that isn’t owned by anyone, there’s no real there’s no regulator, so then there’s so much opportunity for a business or an organisation in the agri-space to take that framework and run with it.
Use this framework as a way to articulate:
What is your mission?
What is your purpose?
Where do you want to make sustainable impact?
Bridget also points out the unique position of New Zealand agriculture and our massive international influence. If we are able to articulate what we are doing and how we are doing it, using a global language such as the SDGs, this can be a great way to communicate how we are working towards sustainability action.
Bridget’s practical take home action to contribute to sustainability in your farming business:
Bridget’s recommendation is a bit of a taking stock exercise to reflect on where you are on your sustainability journey.
- Take a look at the SDGs
- Check out the targets that sit behind each goal
- What are the targets I have direct impact in?
- What are the targets I have indirect impact in?
- What targets would I like to have impacts in?
Recognition and reflection of where you are already at on your sustainability journey and what impact you have achieved is such an important task. “It’s so typical in Aotearoa New Zealand that we don’t actually celebrate the success we are doing so it’s important that we do that. But then the other thing as well is don’t just stop there. We can’t just you know, do SDG bingo, and go great, these are the goals I’m naturally achieving. I challenge you to go a step further and grow that impact and maximise it.”
Another key tip Bridget identified was the need to keep coming back to the ethos of the goals which is leaving noone behind, and she challenged us to ask ourselves ‘how can we involve all of our organisation on our sustainability journey?’. Getting everyone involved not only ensures everyone is aware of where the business is at, but also where it aims to go. “…people will have a personal connection and engagement to the goals they wanna champion and they’ll see how their what they do day-to-day has an impact in that space.”
In summary,
- Look at the SDGs and their targets
- Take stock of where you are on your sustainability journey
- Celebrate the wins
- Map out where you want to go
- Involve everyone in that journey
Listen to Bridget’s podcast episode here: