🎄 Festive fact of the week: While writing ‘A Christmas Carol’, Charles Dickens fleshed out most of the story in his head while taking multiple nighttime walks around London that ranged from 15 to 20 miles long.

Will the greenwashing ever end?

Unilever’s found itself in a spot of bother after being put under investigation over its ‘green’ claims on its products. The Competition and Markets Authority raised concern that some of Unilever’s claims over its ‘natural’ products might be exaggerated and misleading. Other consumer goods companies that’ve been under fire recently include Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestlé, and Danone.

‘A boss orders, a leader guides’. There’s a difference between being a boss and being a leader, and the practice of ethical leadership is one of the main ways you can set this distinction in your own leadership. Check out these 10 tips for success on how to be an ethical leader yourself.

Good communication with your clients and customers is a learned skill, and it seems as though Zara still needs a few lessons on this topic. After releasing a poorly timed and insensitive campaign and an equally insensitive ‘apology’ in response to the backlash surrounding it, it raises the topic of how you should actually respond to upset customers the right way.

Investing genius Charlie Munger passed away last month at the ripe old age of 99. Yeah, he might’ve designed that nightmarish student dormitory that has no windows in any of the bedrooms; but he also left us with many little snippets of wisdom. Here’s a LinkedIn recap with some of his best quotes.

The biggest trends in 2024 graphic design

Graphic design trends tend to change every few years, and as we move into the New Year, there’s a lot of room for new innovations, business models, and production methods to make an appearance. Here are the biggest predicted trends in graphic design for 2024. While it’s a few months old now, this 2023 logo report by LogoLounge is also a great review on the logo trends seen this year.

In what seems like an incredibly ambitious project, UAE practice URB has recently shared its plans to build the world’s largest artificial reef by 2028, unveiling new plans for ‘blue urbanism’. This was a new term to us, which apparently refers to the act of better uniting land and water for climate change mitigation.

A group of designers have carried out a self-initiated redesign of the UN’s logo to reflect the organisation’s projected increase in sea level, showing what the world could look like by 2100. ‘The UN logo has remained unchanged for 78 years, but the world hasn’t’, say designers at the communications agency Publicis Norway.

Have you seen Las Vegas’ big dumb orb that opened a few months ago? The MSG Sphere is a huge entertainment venue completely covered in LEDs, costing $2.3 billion to build. There’ve been talks to open a similar one in Stratford, but should London really be bothering to build one of these? 

There’s a monster lurking under Dorset

An amazing 2-metre long skull of a pliosaur recently emerged from Dorset’s Jurassic Coast. These underwater T. rexs were prowling around our oceans 150 million years ago, and this fossil is one of the most complete specimens of its type ever discovered. Make sure to tune in to BBC One on New Year’s Day to hear David Attenborough talk all about it!

Many of you out there might have bird feeders in your gardens to help your local wildlife keep their stomachs full over the winter, but did you know bird feeders can also help small species fight infection? A new study has shown that supplementary-fed birds have more tolerance to infection without using up their winter energy supply.

While infections and not getting fed are common problems faced by birds, another risk is caused by our feline friends. Domestic cats are currently hunting 2,000 species of bird, with hundreds of those species currently at risk. This is particularly an issue on island nations like Australia, where more than 300 million animals are killed by cats every year.

Check out this amazing new Climate TRACE tool that was just launched by Al Gore’s team. This is a great top-down, independent, and multi-source synthesised dataset of the major carbon bombs that exist all over the world.

Will we see you at the Summit?

We're going to be kicking off 2024 by making the trip up to Manchester for The Better Business Summit!

The Better Business Summit is the annual flagship conference by The Better Business Network and betternotstop, where hundreds of purpose-driven individuals, change-makers, and innovators come together for a 2-day summit full of workshops, panels, and keynote speeches, followed by a third day of nature-based activities.

We even have our own special discount code to share with you all so you can join in on the fun.

Use code AVERYANDBROWN20 by the end of December to get 20% off the full priced tickets!

Each issue of nineteen eighty four, we feature a different Certified B Corporation, to celebrate the brands which are working hard to create a better business world. To learn more about B Corps, click here.

Our featured B Corp this week is…

Kelpi

Kelpi is a sustainable materials innovation business that’s harnessing the properties of seaweed to create compostable, marine-safe, low-carbon packaging.

Kelpi is helping to address the major problems of marine plastic pollution by replacing fossil fuel-plastics with materials that biodegrade fully, leaving no toxins nor micro-plastics behind.