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Check it out. Do the link in the show notes. I’m crystal Izzy Macelli and welcome to the forces for nature show.

Do you find yourself overwhelmed with all the doom and gloom you hear of these days? Do you feel like you as just one person can’t really make a difference forces for nature cuts through that negativity. In each episode, I interview somebody who’s doing great things for animals and the environment we talked through, the problem they’re addressing the solution they have found.

What keeps them going, and we’ll leave you with practical action tips so that you too can become a force for nature. Have you ever watched a documentary that made you want to do something about what you were seeing, but then after the credits life takes back over and that inspiration quickly fades it’s happens to all of us, but today’s guest Andrea Yog is going to introduce us to something new that lets you take action while you’re watching the action.

Waterbury is a free interactive streaming platform dedicated to the future of our planet. They are the new kids on the block, but are already having some pretty impressive impact.

Hi, Andrea, thank you so much for joining me on forces for nature. It’s so great to have you.

Andrea: It’s a pleasure to meet you. Thanks for having me on the show.

Crystal: So let’s dive right in. How did this idea to create a streaming platform come to be.

Andrea: Our CEO, Ellen  who set up off the fence 27 years ago now, which is a production company and distribution company here in Amsterdam and London had this amazing idea for bringing a VOD platform to life where it focused on NGOs and making impact productions for them.

And it was, um, this amazing brain child of Ellen’s. That has been bubbling away for a few years. And finally, we managed to get the right team together to help launch it in December, 2021.

Crystal: How about yourself? How did you get involved?

Andrea: Oh, I love this. I was a producer in London. I am originally from Vancouver, Canada, and 20 years ago I moved to London.

I fell into being a photographers agent and through that started producing photography campaigns for. My photographers. And back in those days, it’s just when social media and digital campaigns started to kick off. And so from stills, I taught myself how to produce film. And then from there, I started to find this massive interest in producing shorts only and telling stories in shorts.

And so alongside working with big brands like Apple and Bentley and John Lewis in the UK. I started to develop my own short films on the side that were a lot more soul fulfilling. So anything to do with animals and conservation and nature. And I thought, Oh, there’s got to be something better than working for brands all the time.

You know? Yes, you have to pay your bills, but this isn’t bringing me any happiness and. The more, I focused on researching shorts and looking into film festivals. I realized, Hey, there’s a whole network of other people out there who are doing exactly what I’m doing. Surely I can join this as well. And. In 2018, I’d gone to a film festival in Bristol, and I heard our MD Victor.

Eckard speaking about Waterbury and the way he described Waterbury, like I need to be a part of that company. And I sent Victor an email then and there October, 2018 saying my name is Andrea  and I have this experience and I want to come work for water bear. And fast forward 18 months found myself over in Amsterdam on a feature film with off the fence, met Victor in person.

And we spoke about how funny it was. I sent him that email 18 months prior, and he basically said, do you want to join the team? We’re ready to launch. Now we need a head of content and production. I was like, yes, absolutely, please. So it’s funny how the world works like that.

Crystal: So, what is the strategy behind what water Vera

Andrea: does?

The purpose behind Waterbury is to bring as many NGOs together as possible and to showcase short films that relate. Yeah, all of this amazing information that they have on the ground and geos are working on such huge, amazing projects all the time. But a lot of the general public don’t know this, or they have to go to individual NGO websites to find that out at Waterbury, you can come and learn about all of these NGO partners that we’ve got and also watch films about them.

And. People on the ground who are working tirelessly for their causes. And the other idea behind Waterbury is to really bring informational impactful. Character-driven inspiring stories to people through the power of film. I think the power of film really does have the chance to help. Move the needle for people, you know, to not just informed, but yeah.

Inspired to go out there and, and be the best person you can be for our planet and, and the animals and everything on the planet.

Crystal: What type of content do you feature? Do you guys produce it yourself or,

Andrea: yeah. Great question. We acquire a lot of films. We look for award-winning shorts, ones that have done the film festivals, just like I was doing with my own personal films.

And we also acquire feature-length documentaries and series. And all of those are within the space that water bear is really passionate about, which is basically anything to do with our planet earth. And the inhabitants of it. So in addition to acquiring these amazing existing films already, we also produce our own content.

We produce impact production, short films for all of our NGO partners. And we currently have nearly a hundred NGO partners signed up. And then in addition to that, we also make water bear originals. So we make short form films. That are inspired by the UN sustainable development goals and we make shorts and we make series and they’re called Waterbury original.

Crystal: Is it divided by categories?

Andrea: Yeah, it is. Well, we curated as well. So you’ve got the watch page, which has all the main films and on the watch page, we’ve. Broken it out a little bit like Netflix, to be honest with rows and each row is an inspirational type of row so that you might have award-winning shorts and then award-winning features and then exciting animal behavior.

So we try to entice people a little bit with what the row content is, and then. You can just scroll your way through it. Like you normally would. There’s another page, which is our partner page, which has all of our NGOs on there and films by her and geos as well. So if you go to the watch page, it’s original content we’ve created and licensed films.

If you go to the partner page, it’s all the NGO films. So it’s, it’s quite carefully curated and broken down. We’ve got over 385 films on the platform already.

Crystal: Now for the listener who might not be familiar with the UN sustainable development goals that you mentioned, can you just touch upon what that is, what they are?

Andrea: Absolutely. So there’s 17 of them and they’re known as the global goals or the UN SDGs, and they’re adopted by the United nations back in 2015 as a universal call to action to end poverty. And protect everybody on the planet to enjoy like peace basically by 2030. So we’re, we’re nearing there. We’ve got nine years to go.

All of the films on water bear are somehow intertwined with a theme or multiple themes from the SDGs. So it’s really one of our core reasons of Waterbury as well. And the films that we choose and the films that we create is to try and pursue these 17 goals.

Crystal: The goals such as environmental sustainability, ocean sustainability, those kind of those goals, I assume.

Andrea: Exactly. So there’s life on land and life below water or to the ones that really pertain to biodiversity. So when we rolled out in Q1, focusing on bio-diversity films, all of those tied into either. SDG 14 or 15 being life on land or life below water. And as you work your way through the goals, they look at anything from humanitarian issues, gender equality, sustainable cities, future of tech.

So many different ideas can fall under the SDGs. And it’s really just trying to make an equal place for everybody on. Our home on our planet earth. So

Crystal: what our bear is an interesting name. Does it have a story behind it?

Andrea: Yes, absolutely. Back when Ellen originally had this nugget of an idea to set up this platform, it did have a different name, but she ended up choosing the name water bear because water bears are the most resilient creature that you can find.

They’re a tardigrade and they’ve been known to be. Dropped in boiling water and survive or frozen and survived sent to space and come back and survived. So what a bear is all about? Resilience.

Crystal: You said they were tardigrade that’s a microscopic organism, correct? Correct. Yes.

Andrea: Okay. They’re funny little creatures.

Crystal: They are go looks kind of looks like one. So if anybody’s interested, go check out Waterbury and you’ll get an idea of what it looks like. And my favorite feature about what our bear is that. You don’t only watch the films, there’s tangible actions that you can take. Can you talk about that?

Andrea: Sure. The great thing about Waterbury is because we’re VOD, you can download the app and also go online.

And so when you’re watching the film on your iPad or on your smartphone, while you’re watching our films, we have this amazing interactive. Application called water bear connect. So as you’re watching the film, it will encourage you to swipe up and learn more. So at various points throughout the film and you can click through and you can learn more about the NGO that we’re focusing on.

You can download a PDF for that information. You can volunteer with that NGO. And most importantly, you can donate if you want to with that NGO. And generally just share those stories with other people. So it’s really interactive. And it creates a lot more impact than just sitting back and relaxing and watching any sort of film.

Speaking

Crystal: of impact, what is your expected impact? Are you able to measure it?

Andrea: Yeah, great question. We really want to create behavioral change and give people the steps and the tools to create that change. So we’ve got seven steps to impact, which are these different tools that we work with our impact team with, and it’s just finding various ways.

Through the power of film again, to encourage people to change their behavior. And we do work really closely with our impact team to measure the metrics on that we’re young and it’s just only four months old now. So the metrics are, are new, but we are already starting to see patterns, which is super exciting.

And then we use that feedback to gear our stories towards what the audience want to watch or what we see needs to be happening a little bit more in the world. Then we change our. Impact in our storytelling objectives and we can pivot so quickly as well being flawed. It’s quite cool.

Crystal: VOD is video on demand, right?

It is.

Andrea: Yeah. I’m drinking the Kool-Aid, you know, when you start saying all these acronyms. Yes,

Crystal: I hear ya. And so another cool feature about Waterbury is that it’s free. How are you able to remain free?

Andrea: Yes. Well, it was really important for us to be a free platform so that as many people as possible could access it, most video on demand platforms are subscription-based and ours is about, uh, members and creating a community of members.

And we’ve been lucky enough to have enough funding to get us up and running. And we’ll continue that through sponsorship and partnerships with big brands and, and starting to tell like purpose-driven stories with. Branded content as well as continue working with our NGO partners. So yeah, it’s, it’s growing.

It’s a very cool working model for sure. How do

Crystal: you avoid, cause you mentioned brands, how do you avoid brands trying to

Andrea: greenwash? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So we have a very strict vetting process that goes through everybody at the company. Literally everybody from our CEO, all the way to, you know, PAs and everybody gets to vote.

So it’s called a moral compass. And when we’re considering which brands to work with, whether they are approaching us or we’re approaching them, everybody gets to vote on the moral compass. Do we feel that this is the right fit for water bear and why? So it really does whittle down those brands quite a lot, but we also are happy to work with brands who are on their own journey.

Nobody squeaky clean. There’s always going to be elements of, Ooh, we were here, but now we’re heading over there. Well, let’s tell that story and let’s work together on your sustainability story.

Crystal: Where can people

Andrea: download water? Bear? Yeah, we’re already in 40 countries. We rolled out in English, speaking countries first.

So all of North America is covered off now and we’re throughout Europe and we’ve started in Africa. So Kenya, South Africa. And then we’ll be rolling out into South America and Asia, hopefully by the end of this year. Yeah. So if you can’t get water, bear in your country right now, hang tight because you can always follow us on Instagram and you’ll be able to find out when we’ll be coming to your country.

Crystal: Awesome. I would like to touch upon a success story that you’ve had. I know you’re super young, but what is a film or two that has received the kind of attention and action that you’re looking for?

Andrea: Oh, it’s probably got to be an eye for detail, which is a Waterbury original, short film about Alfie Bowen.

Alfie is a young. Talented autistic photographer in the UK. And we made a short about Alfie and the struggles that he faced growing up with autism, how he was bullied and the mental health issues that came along with that. And then how he turned towards photographing animals to find not only his creativity, but a sense of self and sanity and mental health.

And as a result of that short. A lot of people have shown interest, including Richard Branson and a couple of other big people who want to maybe work with him, get him over to Africa. It’s his dream to go to Africa, to photograph animals in the wild. There, there’s talk of doing a feature film with him and he’s just become a really great friend for all of us at water bear.

And you could catch him. We did an interview with him on Instagram live as well. So I believe that’s on our, on our page on water bear, but yeah, he’s a huge inspiration to all of us. It was just such a pleasure working with Elfie.

Crystal: Can you tell me a little bit about your new era of action campaign? What’s that all about?

Andrea: Well, it’s a campaign that we launched earlier this year at water bear, which is basically the run-up to cop 26, which is in Glasgow in November. And we’re calling it the year of action. So encouraging people to take action through storytelling, through our NGO partners, through educational streams, and we’ve created 100 steps to action, which will come laminate at cop.

So we’re busy with all those different steps right now.

Crystal: So what can we expect from what our bear in the future? I mean, you guys are only four months old right now.

Andrea: Yeah, it’s true. So coming up very quickly is our rescript, the future campaign, where we’re reaching out to young, talented people to send in script ideas for films.

And we’re joining up with. The environmental photographer of the year competition, we will be at cop 26. We are doing a really cool partnership with the New York times. We’re working with some cool brands. Nick on is one of them. So we’ll be doing some work with them. Well, we are already are. And just really growing as, as fast as we can and these new 40 countries that we’ve just rolled out in to get the word out there and inviting people to really get in touch with us as well, with any story ideas that they’ve got, they want to make with us, or perhaps they know of an inspiring individual that they think we should make a film about.

You know, we just, we want to create a community and a membership. So

Crystal: speaking of growing your partnerships, you had mentioned that you partner with NGOs. How can they partner with you? Sure. It’s an NGO listening right

Andrea: now. Yeah, of course. So, well, first of all, just tell you how we are curating the content on our platform.

And that goes in line with how we’re also onboarding our NGOs. So we split out the year into four quarters and the first one we focused on biodiversity. So we onboarded most of our biodiversity friendly NGOs. For that first quarter. And then for the second quarter, which we’re in right now, we’re focusing on climate.

So our impact team then started to onboard and sign up climate related NGOs. Going forward in Q3, we’re focusing on circularity issues and then Q4 will be community issues. So due to capacity, as well as a little bit of organization, we’re taking it bit by bit. If you like any NGOs can get in touch with our impact team and reach out and they can discuss partnerships.

So I can certainly supply an email address if it’s okay to put it out on here. [email protected]. If you’re an NGO and you want to get in touch with our team, please feel free to reach out. One

Crystal: of my favorite features about this show is that I always like to leave the listener with action tips that they can do themselves from wherever they are.

Can you reiterate and expand upon what you were talking about earlier regarding what the listener can do to

Andrea: help? Ooh. Okay. I’ve got quite a seat with, so we could go back to water bear cadets that we were speaking about earlier. Whilst the viewer is watching the film. They can swipe up and get involved in the NGO that’s being featured in that film by donating money towards that cause or sharing that film with friends or on social media where they think that other people will be interested in it as well.

And you can volunteer with, with that NGO as well. But in addition to that, The production team and marketing team and impact team have been working really closely together to come up with CTAN or calls to action that we put at the end of each of our films. So we’re starting to roll that out now, which are super cute, little animated CTEs.

And for each film, we put five CTA. At the end of your short film, you’ll be able to look at different ways that you can go out and get involved or change your ways such as. Eat a more plant-based diet fly, less cycle more by the bamboo toothbrush. I’m making them up on the spot here, but you get this sort of idea.

And four out of the five of those CTS at the end of each film will be a tangible behavioral suggestion that you can do. And the fifth CTA is always linked to one of the NGOs that we have pulled into, um, that film. So it’s specifically related to that film.

Crystal: And you also have, uh, a travel component and an e-commerce component as well.

Right soon,

Andrea: you’ll be able to book sustainable travel to our travel partners. We will be offering e-commerce as well, very soon.

Crystal: And speaking of the actions, the easiest one for someone to do is to just sign up right now because you guys have a new, would you call a campaign that every person who signs up gets a tree planted?

Andrea: Absolutely. We’ve just started this. One member one tree campaign. So up to the next 30,000 people who sign up and become a water bear member, which again is free. Just go to waterbury.com and you can sign up. You just put your email address in there, and every time somebody new signs up, we plant a tree.

So please, please, please sign up and tell your friends as well.

Crystal: Andrea, this has been great. I’m super excited about this new platform available to people. Thank you so much for all that you do. You’re making a difference. Well,

Andrea: same to you as well. What a great idea for podcasts. I wish you all the luck as well.

Thank you for having us.

Crystal: I personally am all for technology, making it easier for us to make an impact. And the water bear platform does this in such an innovative and fun way. Take a few minutes and check it out. They have great content that you can get sucked into and even better projects that you can learn, how to support all from the comfort of your own couch.

Don’t forget to go to forces for nature.com and sign up to receive email shownotes action tips and a free guide to help you start taking practical actions today. Do you know someone else who would enjoy this episode? I would be so grateful if you would share it with them, hit me up on Instagram and Facebook.

And let me know what actions you have been taking. Adopting. Just one habit can be a game changer because imagine if a million people also adopted that, what difference for the world are you going to make today?