Walking down Abbott Kinney Boulevard in Venice Beach is like walking down an alternative Rodeo Drive: one that is populated by high-end boutiques and restaurants, all featuring the latest fashions and food. But look a little closer and you’ll see that there is a common thread. Socially conscious fashion brands like Shinola, Warby Parker and Tom’s all have flagship stores, bursting at the seams with customers. The coolest restaurants like Gjelina, Felix (Esquire’s Best New Restaurant in America) and The Butcher’s Daughter are known for beautiful, ethically-sourced, plant-forward cuisine (one of the hottest menu items on the street is The Impossible Burger,a delicious meatless burger that tastes as close to the real thing as you can imagine). At MedMen, a sleek cannabis dispensary outlet, the design is more Apple store than smoke shop, all Ipads and blond wood, with patient ‘budtenders’ there to help the crowds of newbies with education and advice. Down the block at Bulletproof Labs (a spin-off of Bulletproof Coffee) fitness enthusiasts get to optimize their performance, biohacking themselves with cryotherapy, light therapy and float tanks. At StretchLab on Rose Avenue, trained yoga instructors stretch tired muscles into shape, easing the tensions of daily life. It’s not unusual any more to see a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket fly overhead after a launch from nearby Vandenburg Air Force Base, whilst below our feet Elon Musk’s The Boring Company is getting ready to transform traffic jams into a thing of the past. And as the gentle California sun sets, tourists and locals alike gleefully zip around on Bird electric scooters, grinning like ten-year-olds in delight (no wonder the company was the fastest unicorn to hit a billion-dollar valuation ever).
Living in LA is like living in the future. It’s a constant stream of crypto, cannabis, and content. I do believe that the intersection of the creative scene, entertainment business and emerging technologies create a unique mix of entrepreneurs who look at the future differently. Combine the technology with LA’s history of leading the country in wellness it all makes for a super interesting city. After being on the east coast for 20+ years it feels good to be a part of this energy,' says James Andrews, Managing Partner at OpenNest, a brand accelerator and venture studio dedicated to social impact.
In the words of Buffalo Springfield, ‘There’s something happening here’, a new awakening in LA’s zeitgeist, fuelled by cross-pollination amongst several tectonic forces colliding together. There is the new world of Silicon Beach, where companies like Google, Facebook, Snapchat and more have taken over massive spaces (there’s the internet down here as well, and you know, sunshine). That coupled with the historical industries of movies, TV, music and gaming have created for the new corporate juggernauts of our time. In addition to ‘golden age of television’ giants like Netflix and Hulu, companies like Apple and Amazon are taking over vast chunks of Culver City to build their own campuses as the content gold rush continues - at last count there were more than $21 billion dollars in new content budgets that didn’t exist a few years ago - and this is before Disney unleashes its ‘Disneyflix’ competitor to Netflix which is already gearing up to be quite an addition. Not to mention gaming companies like Activision in Santa Monica whose gigantic franchises like ‘Call of Duty’ can generate oh, just a billion dollars of sales in the first two weeks. And finally, the vanguard of virtual reality is represented with cutting-edge companies like supercool director Chris Milk’s Within, The Virtual Reality Company, Survios, and Emblematic Group, founded by Nonny de la Pena, dubbed the ‘Godmother of VR’. LA is a city built on story, and as our culture is more hungry for stories than ever before, on more devices and more screens, this is the place to be for creators of all kinds.
And those stories are increasingly taking a purpose-driven lense to the world. In addition to incumbents like Participant Media (who have a fantastic track record of producing films like ‘Spotlight’ ‘He Named Me Malala’ and ‘An Inconvenient Truth’) are new entrants like veteran producer and criminal justice reform activist Scott Budnick who has launched Good Films, a $150 million fund to create films with maximum social impact. And in the wake of the TimesUp movement, with a legal fund of over $21 million to help pay the legal fees of women who have been sexually harassed, more initiatives have been unveiled like the Evolve Entertainment Fund by filmmaker Ava Du Vernay, producer Dan Lin and Mayor Eric Garcetti to promote inclusion in the entertainment industry. And Compton which has long produced superstar talent from Dr Dre to Venus and Serena Williams has its latest champion in Pulitzer-Prize winning artist Kendrick Lamar (maybe Compton is the real Wakanda).
Perhaps it is Los Angeles more mellow, hippy roots, which lead this city to be less cynical but LA has also become a mecca for socially conscious companies of all stripes. Tom’s and The Honest Company are the OG’s in this space. But everywhere you look, examples of social enterprises abound. Swell is an impact investing company based in Santa Monica, which allows investors to simply and efficiently direct their investments into green tech, clean energy, renewables, and disease eradication amongst others. In their breezy offices overlooking the ocean (complete with office surfboards), Chief Marketing Officer Teresa Orsolini talked about why their financial start-up chose LA over Silicon Valley or Wall Street.
We always say that we were born in Southern California. One of the things that struck us was the momentum with social entrepreneurship- there was already this energy here. There’s also a movement around environmental and social progress - California is one of the most socially progressive states in the country and arguably in the world, so we think its the right spot for us to be right now,' she says
Other socially impactful companies making Los Angeles home include #Goodtech start-up Pledgeling, which aligns brands and cause to increase business and social impact; Aspiration, which offers checking accounts, 401ks and other ethical financial products; and Gifts for Good, which provide corporations with beautiful, sustainable corporate gifts. Dosist (formerly Hmbldt) is leading the way in the cannabis space with a beautifully designed and intuitive product that was named Time Magazine’s Best Inventions of 2016. And the celebrity-driven fundraising platform Omaze which has just raised over $100 million for good causes by partnering with stars such as Chris Pratt, Jennifer Lawrence, John Legend and more is in the heart of Culver City on the West Side.
On the agency side, shops like Enso (whose World Value Index tracks socially conscious brands), We First, In Good Co, and others are all spearheading the Good Revolution. MAL For Good, a spin-off off TBWAMAL has done sterling work for clients like Conservation International, NPR and The XQ Institute, the latter a bold attempt to reimagine what public high school would look like with talents like Laurene Powell Jobs, Marc Ecko and Yo Yo Ma involved. Progressive agencies like Anomaly and Sid Lee are all doing sterling work in the social impact space, and larger agencies like 72 and Sunny even have their own Brand Citizenship practice. ThinkLA, a collective whose mission is to inspire the LA creative community holds regular events, as does Conscious Capitalism LA which brings together the socially conscious business community.
On the fashion side are players such as ethical fashion darlings Reformation who make their products sustainably (for instance, using deadstock fabrics) as well as Triarchy, a jeans company dedicated to reducing the massively wasteful amount of water (2900 gallons) that goes into making a pair of jeans, and Apolis (meaning ‘Global Citizen), a brand with a cult following for their beautiful and ethical products like tote bags and t-shirts.
On the non-profit front, LA is home to the X-Prize Foundation which partners with brands to launch audacious crowd-sourced challenges to some of the world’s biggest problems, using technologies like robotics, 3D printing and AI. Other social enterprises include Two Bit Circus who are busy creating the future of STEAM education with their madcap circus which blurs the line between learning and entertainment. And Mick Ebeling and his team at Not Impossible Labs are doing frankly amazing work in helping use new technologies to tackle everything from 3D printing prosthetic arms to helping paralyzed graffiti writers use their eyeballs to tag.
Food is an area where socially innovative models are thriving in LA. At Homeboy Industries (and its sister establishment Homegirl Cafe), former gang members are getting a second chance at life by learning new skills. Wall Street banker turned food activist Sam Polk is rolling out his Everytable concept around the city, with a unique dual pricing model: the same food is priced higher in a more affluent neighborhood which effectively subsidises it in a lower-income neighborhood: a version of positive price discrimination if you will. Non-profits like TwiceNew are dealing with the problem of food waste by arranging to pick up excess food and help channel it to the places that can use it to feed the homeless and the hungry. And Robert Egger and the team at LA Kitchen are doing sterling work in helping the formerly incarcerated and kids aging out of foster care find meaningful work as chefs, whilst also helping solve the food waste problem in the city by turning them into nutritious meals for the disadvantaged - their motto is ‘Neither Food Nor People Should Go to Waste’.
LA isn’t perfect of course. Homelessness is still a rampant problem, which needs to be tackled in a comprehensive, humane way, and housing prices are heating up. But there is something happening in this city, perfectly positioned on the Pacific Rim for the dawn of the Asian century that makes it a good place to bet on the future. Leave it to Mayor Garcetti to sum it all up. He says
For the businesses of Los Angeles, doing well is no longer the sole standard for success; so is doing good. To tap into Angelenos’ spirit of activism, civic engagement, and social responsibility, the city is making common cause with the tech, entertainment, venture capital, and non-profit sectors. Major local companies are providing funding, internship opportunities, workforce development, and mentorship programs to young people from underserved communities. In turn, our rising industries are leading the charge on developing an inclusive workforce that reflects the diversity of Los Angeles. Everywhere we look, the story is the same: social impact is part of the L.A. zeitgeist. Everyone’s bottom line is strengthened by embracing this ethic of service; and everyone is playing a role in making us the capital of creativity, culture, and a more equal and just future.”
