John Hardy is not your typical captain of industry.
In 1997, when Hardy acquired the land in Nusa Penida (near Bali) for his rapidly expanding business, it was still rice fields. Hardy was concerned about converting food-producing land, so the design studio is also an organic farm, complete with livestock—cows, goats, poultry, rabbits—and fish ponds. The paths are paved in river stones and lined with tall sugar cane. Rice grows in paddy fields outside the glass walls of the design center. The food grown here is used to provide the employees (over seven hundred people) with a healthy lunch.
So, it’s only natural that Hardy would also introduce the concept of Sustainable Advertising to address the carbon footprint associated with the production and distribution of his firm’s print advertising.
All this is to be commended, but there’s no mention of the sourcing of the firm’s raw materials—gold, silver, jewels, etc.—which is almost always an envrionmentally destructive act.
