Aaron Schiller (Saatchi S Global Director of Sustainability) and Phillip Ma (Account Supervisor at SaatchiNY) were recently invited to Syracuse University to speak and participate in a two day charrette on the subject of Saatchi & Saatchi’s Do One Thing Program. Below is a recap of the two day event from Phillip.

WHAT’S A CHARRETTE?
So what’s a charrette? Basically, it’s a collaborative session in which a group of people draft solutions to a problem. The DOT charrette was organized by the SIFE and COLAB student groups at Syracuse, who then extended an invitation to some sustainability team members here in the SaatchiNY offices. We joined a group of Syracuse University students exploring creative solutions to spread DOTs not just on their own campus, but beyond. Saatchi had shared with the students their brief about the importance of sustainability and action, the students went away to brainstorm ideas.

INNOVATIVE IDEAS
We were blown away by the innovative and creative solutions that were developed for further expanding DOT. By the end of our charrette, the group had produced over 600 concepts for expanding DOT to more students, including an amazing final presentation. We both feel privileged to witness first hand the excitement around this project, and really wanted to share that energy with everyone at here at Saatchi.

We’re looking to really blow out DOT at Syracuse and other campuses, and if anyone at SaatchiNY is excited about the potential and is interested in volunteering, please feel free to reach out to us.  We can really make a difference, as students have shown at Syracuse their passion to embrace sustainability; we have an opportunity to create a DOT movement that reaches everyone.

FROM THE STUDENTS
For two days, 50 students were hard at work, brainstorming ideas on how to bring the concept of DOT to life on the Syracuse University Campus SU-SIFE would like to extend a very big thank you to Saatchi & Saatchi for making the DOT Charrette such a tremendous success.

- Joseph Hanko, SI-SIFE rep