Dear friends and family of Siren,
The new year began with a deafening wake-up call from mother nature, delivered in the form of devastating bushfires in Australia.
At moments like these there are two ways to handle things – either hide in a corner, cover your eyes and ears and hope it will all go away… or get your hands dirty and do something about it.
We’re on a mission to do something about it, and I feel the time is right to share it with you.
Photo credit – Words of wisdom from The Little Press.
At our board meeting early last year we gathered to workshop our direction for the business. Siren was flourishing, great projects, wonderful clients, fantastic team. But as creatives and entrepreneurs we like to keep challenging ourselves to look at things from a different angle.
As part of this, we did some research and self-reflection on our own business, and the interiors sector as a whole, and we discovered a dirty secret.
Houston, we have a problem…
When it comes to sustainability, interior design is terrible. It’s worse than fashion.
As a profession, we are motivated to tell clients to rip everything out and change things every few years, whether they need to or not. And where does all that stuff go?
Well to be honest, I don’t really know, but I have a sick feeling that a very large amount of it goes to landfill.
It’s time to clean up our act
Siren Singapore get their hands dirty at the 2019 staff retreat.
So, we decided that it’s time to make change. Time to shake things up and rethink the whole approach of our business and the industry, and we need to use our creative thinking to do something about it.
As a starting point we developed a new mission and purpose to set a clear direction.
This is it, our new purpose and mission
The big challenge with this sort of mission and purpose is that it has to be authentic. We have to make change on every level – from our own approach on a daily level within our work environment, to our projects, our collaborations with our suppliers, the materials we specify, right through to the insight, ideas and direction we give our clients.
It’s no small task, but we’ve always taken pride in being brave and we live for a challenge.
I believe in the human spirit and the power of creativity.
I’m also a mother of two young girls, so I want to ensure that I am doing everything in my power to do the best I can for their future.
Business can be a power for good. If we can inject some creative thinking and a determination to care for the planet at every level we touch, I know we’ll make change.
We won’t solve it all at once, we’ll make mistakes along the way, but we’re on the journey. We’re not sure where it will take us, but we hope you will join us.
As always, we’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas. I’ll also keep you posted on our latest initiatives in the coming months.
Here’s to the adventure!
Mia & The Sirens
The Siren Sydney and Melbourne teams come together to workshop how to use our creativity to have positive impact.