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Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

Environmental issues have been dominating both the editorial and commercial space for the last 2 years. There are very few people who have access to the media who are not fully aware of the fact that the environment is suffering because of our activities. If it isn’t the news telling us the latest ominous statistic, it is a commercial brand telling us that if we buy any product other than theirs the planet is doomed.

As we found when we conducted our MAP research last year, the world of commercial imagery has been green washed. Trees abound while cute and cuddly polar bears and penguins remind us of their plight.

Emerging out of this and, no doubt as a result of consuming large amounts of the more intelligent media, we are seeing the middle classes adopting attitudes and behaviors previously attributed to hippies and activists. The greatest difference being that these people are not dropping out of society and abandoning consumerism, on the contrary they are using consumption as the very mechanism that defines their “greenness”.

Thorstein Veblen wrote about “The Theory of the Leisure Class” over 100 years ago. He identified the rise of the middle classes who had disposable income to spend and used it in a bid to promote themselves to the outside world. He was the one who coined the phrase “conspicuous consumption” as the pursuit of products that gave one status amongst one’s peers.

So to now, we see a green conspicuous consumption amongst those consumers that have disposable income and wish to maintain a certain status and they most likely come from the middle classes.

The great news for brands is that this social group is the one who is willing to spend that little extra for their products if they think they are for a worthwhile cause. Hence the explosion of “green” products ranging from toothpastes to corporate jets!

NOW…..and here is the twist in the tale. This has all been going swimmingly for green advertising in the last year or so, however, something has now come along (that some…like Nassem Nicholas Taleb predicted but were derided) that was not expected and will no doubt throw a spanner in the works of the green marketing machine - that is the “credit crunch”.

The credit crunch will affect the middle classes the most, they are the one who dabble in the buy-to-let schemes, use credit cards for nights out and weekend breaks, they are also the ones who fund “daily luxury” brands like Starbucks. So what is going to happen now these consumers have less money to play with each month? The daily lattes may go, as will the taxi rides but will there be an impact on the burgeoning “green” market? Organic food for instance is more expensive than regular fare so will it be dropped in favor of something more economical? Will we care less about environmental issues as we spend more time caring about our financial future?

As with all crises large or small, we always retract back to what is closest to us and what can be easily influenced by us. Worrying about the polar ice caps may seem low on the priority list when we are worrying about whether we will get a summer holiday this year. OR – will the uncertainty spur us to think more about what is important beyond our own selfish needs and to concentrate on issues that really matter? (The environment potentially being one of those issues.)

From a commercial imagery point of view, it has thrown another element in the mix. Only last month, I was talking at a conference declaring the fact that environment was going to impact visual communication for years to come; both in terms of subject matter and aesthetic. Last week, I was also talking and had to admit that the future is not so certain. It will be interesting to watch whether the credit crunch becomes an issue that impacts the way brands communicate, maybe the green message will have less impact as a visual sales tool. Maybe the idea of “efficiencies” will be more attractive? Look out for those 3 for 2 offers at a supermarket coming to you soon!

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Beijing has raced to improve its air quality before August 8, crude oil just hit a new high at $117 a barrel, and a huge chunk of Antarctic ice just fell off right into the water (apparently it was seven times the size of Manhattan). Earth Day seems more important now than ever before.

There are demonstrations, celebrations, protests, new ad campaigns and all sorts of activities about how each of us can make a difference, make a change, save the world, save the animals, save the forests and save ourselves. In case you haven’t done your part yet, check out a few of the sights below that will give you some ideas on what to do next:

• http://www.earthday.net
• http://www.saveourplanet.org
• http://www.wecansolveit.org
• http://www.ecorazzi.com

Here’s the deal people - we love stuff. We love to buy stuff, hold stuff, look at stuff and dream of stuff. We are a culture of STUFF.

Those of us, in the business of communicating, are stuff experts. We entice people to buy more of it. That’s okay, I’m proud to be a stuff expert. However, the question for our time is this:  how do you sell more stuff while responsibly communicating about all things Earth Day?

To explore the answer to the question above, we did a study. It’s called Map 2: AspEn. Aspirational Environmentalism. Within the pages of Map 2 we look at green communication from around the globe to try to understand visually where we are today and where we might go tomorrow. It’s one of my favorite projects of all time, it’s about the human condition and how we all communicate about stuff we need vs. stuff we desire.

So go check it out. Don’t print it out. Drink from your recyclable coffee cup. Plant a tree. And go celebrate Mother Earth!

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The environment…it’s still hot. Well, no big surprise there. In fact, it may seem like we’re a little late to the game. But alas, I don’t think we are.

We have yet to ask ourselves - how will all of this environmental overload of information, fear mongering, crazy weather, green washing, truth telling, government subsidizing, law making, affect the way consumers think about and respond to pictures?!

Hello Map Report #2: AspEn. The report is hot off the press, literally. We applied the same methodology we used in the first one, but also interviewed some really cool people like Davis Guggenheim (who directed An Inconvenient Truth) and Simran Sethi (who is the founder of treehugger.com and a frequent guest on Oprah).

The whole project was a great experience (more on that later on). Click here for an excerpt to wet your whistle. Let me know what you think, I’d love to get a discussion going. I would love to hear from you about how you think the environment is affecting your work, your workplace and your life.

“Unchanging rooms. The backlash against home makeovers” was the coverline on the London Guardian’s newspaper supplement yesterday. The article inside was based on a photography book Living Normally, which is showcasing (if that’s the word) homes that haven’t been swept through by the ‘makeover movement’.

It’s fascinating because it is flagging a phenomenon predicted by the Map Report (what Makes A Picture), released a couple of months back.

Produced by Getty Images Creative Research team and titled One Life, the first MAP Report is 11,000 words long, based on the study of 2000 tearsheets from around the globe, analysing 50,000 unique searches conducted for images, and includes the confessions of over 500 creatives who revealed under hypnosis the deep visual trends for the next 12 months. I made the last bit up.

But the MAP Report’s findings are based on an exhaustive global study, thorough analysis of cultural, commercial and social trends, interviews with relevant ‘trend witnesses’, and really does include a survey of 500 professionals from around the globe.

While The Guardian feature sees the backlash against home makeovers as a backlash against designer culture, signalling a desire for the handmade (as designers know, the ‘handmade’ is also really a designer culture) the MAP report suggested that this makeover backlash is likely to happen for longer term socio-psychological reasons.

The term One Life refers to a desire for anchorage in a world where we feel overwhelmed by choice, information, and the generalised anxiety of the post 9/11 world. The 90s and early noughties values of multi-tasking, enjoying the multiple roles afforded by modern lifestyles, have become for many far too stressful. The concept motivating One Life is an assertion of a desire to take control, to focus, to filter out the information overload, which is finding unusual expressions in advertising and photography.

The Map Report suggested that it’s the ‘makeover’ concept in general, linked to a treadmill experience of change that’s increasingly unappealing. Here’s one relevant passage from the report:

“Anxiety around change has been played out in TV. The relentless wave of space-makeover TV, which initially locked onto the nesting trend, is now perceived as a threat to the ‘nest’ that is constantly being gutted, fixed and rebuilt. Programs such as Swan, Extreme Makeover and 10 Years Younger, where the focus is on the individual rather than the space they occupy.

One Life is a call for anchorage. It will reject the fast-changing, style focus of nesting programs and demand an altogether more timeless approach in communication. Just because change is inevitable, doesn’t mean people want to spend their time feeding and following its call. Expect to see a change of emphasis in TV programming, publishing and elsewhere, as nesting-cum-makeover programs switch to preaching more eternal values.”

(Photograph by Freudenthal Verhagen)

It’s a bit like Tom Waits’ breathless sales rap Step Right Up! “Tired of being the life of the party? Change your shorts, change your life, change your life, change into a nine-year-old Hindu boy, get rid of your wife…” Anyway…

…the Map Report explores how a range of social and cultural dynamics translate into the visual language of photography. If that lights your candle, you can register here to see a webcast next Wednesday by Lewis Blackwell, Getty Images Global Creative Director, who will be summarizing some key ideas in the report. One Life is about how people at this moment are dealing with change, and how the visual language will have to change to meet that.

In the meantime I want that ultimate product that Tom Waits pictures in Step Right Up!

“That’s right, it fillets, it chops
It dices, slices, never stops
lasts a lifetime, mows your lawn
And it mows your lawn
and it picks up the kids from school
It gets rid of unwanted facial hair
it gets rid of embarrassing age spots
It delivers a pizza
and it lengthens, and it strengthens.”

Uncannily, the album on which this song appears is called… Small Change

(Photograph by Mitch Jenkins / Exclusive by Getty Images)