THE BIG INTERVIEW

The United Nations’ SDG Media Compact has a mission to educate and raise awareness through stories and entertainment. And that’s the licensing industry’s bread and butter. Caroline Petit, deputy director of the UN’s Regional Information Centre, shares her mission.

BELOW: Raya, created by Sesame Workshop for the Cleaner, Healthier, Happier campaign that runs in Bangladesh, India, and Nigeria and is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

THE STARS THE STARS,

The thing with Caroline Petit, the deputy director of the United Nations’ Regional Information Centre for Western Europe, is that she likes to popup where she’s least expected. In a professional capacity, of course.

This doesn’t mean she’s accustomed to lurking around corners, waiting to catch you drinking from a plastic straw – no matter how good that account would be on TikTok – but it does mean that visitors of Brand Licensing Europe this year found themselves – unwittingly or not – witness to a UN address on sustainability in brands and fashion.

It was on stage that Caroline introduced audiences to the Irish educational youth movement, Junk Kouture – the ‘circular pioneers of tomorrow’ – while it was on the show floor at the ExCeL London event that the United Nations’ representative learned the most.

“I learned a lot at Brand Licensing Europe,” she tells Products of Change now from the comfort of her own home in Brussels. “I like to be, as a UN Communicator, in places where the UN is not expected to be because that’s where we can meet new audiences, communicate, and also learn about industry priorities and where the matches are with the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

“And I met with some really committed and innovative industry professionals at Brand Licensing Europe, like The Eden Project and Wastebuster; those companies are really doing it, taking action, and inspiring people.”

It works as a reassurance of sorts, Caroline admits, that industry is starting to make a difference and that behind the big brands and the corporate logos, there are “human beings who are committed and realise that yes, we need government, but that it is essential we act at all levels to take responsibility, too.”

For Caroline, her role is all about raising awareness. Awareness and education. It’s how the United Nations and its network of 59 United Nations

Information Centres across the world, acting on behalf of the Department of Global Communications of the United Nations, see it best to “mobilise action for the planet”. This all falls, by the way, under the communication priorities and UN Pillars of the UN’s Secretary General, Antonio Guterres; to embed Peace and Security, Human Rights, and Sustainable Development across the world. “We are in emergency mode,”

says Caroline. “We are mobilising for the planet – taking care of the planet of the people, fighting inequalities, all while recovering from Covid-19. Which is why we are trying to recover better – and greener – and leaving no one behind.”

Much of the effort is exerted in battling the rise in misinformation, hate speech, and all the other - darker – areas of social media that “do nothing but hinder that progress.”

“The spread of misinformation and doubting, it’s led to a lot of things that have been misunderstood or misinterpreted,” Caroline explains. “The 17 SDGs were adopted by the UN in 2015 and we are halfway towards the deadline of 2030 and a lot of progress has been made. But misinformation has become a barrier to breakdown.

“Just like there are still people who didn’t get the Covid-19 vaccine, the same is for climate change. There are still people who do not believe what the science is telling us.”

It strikes a particular chord for the Belgian whose own country suffered flooding in the last year owing to climate change. Then there are the events in Florida and the heatwaves and fires here in the UK.

“Misinformation is a vicious circle, and our mission is to stop that and tell audiences to pause and think,” says Caroline. “We want to educate people, because if we don’t, we will lose that focus of energy on the 17 SDGs and the mobilisation of action.”

This is where the industry comes into its own. Caroline makes no secret that the brand licensing sector will have a key role “towards achieving the 17 SDGs because they can be a catalyst of change.” Many of them already are. These are companies positioned to talk to manufacturers, distributors, and producers while delivering to a wide, global audience whose own awareness of the connection between people and the planet is growing.

Caroline uses The Smurfs as her prime example, largely because the brand – like herself – is Belgian, but equally because it is one of the many her office is proud to have recruited to the SDG Media Compact. Representative of the value of friendship, their connection to nature, and the colour blue – “the United Nations’ blue” - Caroline saw that the spirit of The Smurfs aligned, somehow, with the SDGs.

“We just needed to align the brand closer,” Caroline remembers. “So, by signing up to the SDG Media Compact, a group similar to our UN Global Compact but a network of media and entertainment brands and networks aligned with the 17 SDGs, we created a dialogue to bring them in closer with our kind of missions and aspirations.”

One of the first campaigns The Smurfs embarked on as ambassadors for the United Nations’ SDGs was a European Beach Clean-up orchestrated by both the UN and the EU. Since then, the brand has been working in closer and closer alignment with the SDGs in a bid to facilitate global changes. You may have noticed, for instance, Smurfette no longer plays nurse to the Smurf Village. That was part of the “constructive criticism” offered to the brand upon its signing to the SDG Media Compact. “I see the SDG Media Compact not just as a signature and a ‘hey guys, I’m part of the SDG Media Compact,’ but as an opportunity to have a point of contact in the UN who would help you to see what matches and where your own priorities line-up with the SDGs,” says Caroline. “I like to always say, the goals are not the UN Goals – they have been adopted by the UN, but they are the People’s Goals. They are yours, and mine, and the industry, because if we are empowered then we can embed them in whatever we do.” Caroline can’t not mention the LEGO Group, either, which has been a long-term partner of the United Nations and has been the source of some very interesting discussion around creating

“I really believe the industry is products aligned with the values and ways key because education is key in which to integrate and can solve so many SDGs. those values into the daily life – and the Working together is a big part toys – of children. of the journey towards success.” “I really believe the industry is key

Caroline Petit, The UN because education is key and can solve so many SDGs,” she says. “And so is collaboration. Working together is a big part of the journey towards success, and solidarity is an essential solution for addressing and tackling the world’s biggest problems.”

LEFT: Rovio’s Angry Birds joins the UN’s Act Now Climate Campaign in 2019.

LEFT: Mattel’s Thomas the Tank Engine gets all aboard with the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

BELOW: Products of Change’s Helena Mansell-Stopher and the deputy director at the United Nations Regional Information Centre, Caroline Petit.