Eco-Age launches the Eco-Verse, a dedicated NFT and Metaverse division of its consultancy agency for a more sustainable future
Press release
London, January 13th – Eco-Age, the leading full circle consulting and creative agency specialised in integrated sustainability with more than 12 years on record in shaping sustainability strategies, has launched the Eco-Verse division to advise clients on how to enter the NFT and metaverse world making sure they respect both environmental and social standards.
Businesses wishing to consult the new Eco-Verse division will have access to Eco-Age creative director Livia Firth and CEO Simon Whitehouse, as well as sustainability, technology and blockchain luminaries including Auret Van Heerden, expert on human rights in global supply chains and AnamXR, an industry-first social Metaverse platform built upon blockchain, cloud and game engine (Unreal Engine) technologies whose mission is to build the metaverse with sustainability, decentralisation and human-centric frameworks at the forefront. This dedicated Eco-Age division will support companies seeking to produce and market NFTs or enter the metaverse world and raise awareness of some of the most pressing societal and environmental issues of our time –ensuring the right governance is in place to guarantee equitable and moral standards.
Eco-Age – whose portfolio of clients also includes Wembley Stadium, and the Football Association, Gucci, Diesel, Reformation, UGG and The Woolmark Company – has pioneered some of the most successful sustainability initiatives of the last 12 years, such as The Green Carpet Challenge, The Green Carpet Fashion Awards and the Renaissance Awards, which launched in 2021.
Within this awards sector, its recent work in technological innovation has set new standards across the industry. In 2020, Eco-Age became the first company to film an awards ceremony – The Green Carpet Fashion Awards 2020 edition with CNMI – using virtual reality, augmented reality, real-time game engines and holograms. For this year’s inaugural Renaissance Awards, Eco-Age revolutionised the traditional act of prize-giving when it came up with the concept of awarding winners with NFTs made from Renaissance masterpieces. As well as creating a priceless award, Eco-Age worked with blockchain experts Cardano and their unique proof-of-stake smart contract for every winner, to guarantee that winners receive 50% of royalties from every resale in perpetuity.
Livia Firth says: “This epoch promises plenty of disruption. But whether or not this is welcome depends on how we steer a course through change. It is a question of making decisions predicated on social justice and ethics, and at Eco-Age we strongly believe we should be the designers, the architects and the instigators of this new technological revolution. Today we finally have strong frameworks in the ‘physical world’ such as the 17 Sustainable Development Goals or reporting frameworks such as the SASB and GRI and this new technological revolution is not exempt from governance – although currently no one is talking about it or even thinking about it. And we have decided to roll up our sleeves and once again lead on the conversation”.
Auret Van Heerden says: “The metaverse is already being built, by us, the users of digital media. It is our data and behaviour that enables the metaverse, but we are not being consulted or included in the development of proprietary metaverses. We urgently need to engage in order to set ethical standards, protect human rights and environmental standards and restore agency to the users. That is the only way to ensure that the metaverse is beneficial.”
Want to learn more? Read Livia’s article on why, after 12 years of working in sustainability we are launching the Eco-Verse.