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Building a Sustainable Legacy: Insights from Cat Ekkelboom-White
By Kyle Wilson
Cat Ekkelboom-White is an elopement photographer and hiking guide living in the Alps. She has created a super-niche that exclusively works with adventure-loving couples in her adopted home in the Austrian Alps & Dolomites. She's also a certified coach, supporting other creatives on their journey to build sustainable businesses and the founder of the sustainability initiative Photographers for People & Planet.
In a Masterclass session, Cat shared valuable insights on how photographers can influence sustainability efforts and ensure their work leaves a positive legacy.
This article is an edited and condensed summary of Cat’s masterclass. Watch the video on YouTube for the full unedited session.
The Photographer’s Legacy
Have you ever been influenced by an image from another photographer and thought you wanted to go there or shoot a wedding like that? Now imagine you put some effort into trying to get to this location and you go shoot this wedding. You're so excited to share these images because they're incredible. You're ready to inspire the next group of people to travel to that location.
As photographers, our work leaves a legacy. We have the honor of capturing people and places around the world. Our images have the incredible ability to tell stories, inspire others, and evoke emotions in our clients and people we may never have met. That's an incredible legacy to leave, but that's not the only way our work has a legacy in the world.
Whether you like the term or not, we are all influencers. We have a scope of influence, and we need to reflect on just how far our impact and legacy can reach and also acknowledge that not everything we do leaves a positive legacy.
How can we be sure that our work leaves a positive legacy for both people and the planet?
Defining Sustainability
Sustainability can mean different things to different people. For some, it signifies business longevity; for others, it encompasses environmental consciousness or ethical practices. As photographers and business owners, sustainability involves making choices that protect the planet, enrich the lives of people around the world, and provide us with a consistent income stream that allows us to sustain our lifestyles.
A definition of sustainability that resonates with Cat is:
Sustainability is the long-term well-being for all people and the planet.
This definition highlights that sustainability isn’t just about future goals; it’s about creating a positive impact now.
3 Pillars of Sustainability
The concept of sustainability is often broken down into three main pillars: Environment, Economy, and Society. You may have heard of “planet, people, profit” or the “triple bottom line.”
1. Environmental sustainability
The sustainability of the environment is impacted through our emissions, waste generation, and the effect we have on the natural environment.
- Emissions or carbon footprint.
We generate emissions from fossil fuels that we burn to do our business, like driving a car or heating your home or your office; from our use of electricity to work on computers and charge batteries; and from everything else like manufacturing, shipping, usage of your equipment, travel, printed products, outsourcing and our digital footprints.
- Waste generation.
We generate direct waste, like day-to-day office waste, electronics, printed products, and client gifts.
Indirect waste generation has to do with the images we share and the behavior promoted within those images.
Every time we share an image, we potentially influence how many people might want that thing. Think about elaborate wedding details that can influence people's purchasing decisions, like confetti smoke bombs and champagne sprays. The odd champagne spray or confetti may not seem like a huge deal, but how many take place every year?
- The impact on the natural environment.
There have been a lot of conversations around 'Leave No Trace', which is a great place to start, but it's important to consider the direct impact of photographers being in a place and the repercussions of sharing a photo and others wanting to follow in those footsteps.
Increased traffic to certain areas can lead to physical damage to sites and changes to wildlife behavior, either from becoming used to humans or moving out of areas because there are simply too many people going there.
The need to bring in additional infrastructure to maintain trails, parking, and fences can result in locations becoming even more popular, which is often promoted through photography. As photographers, perhaps we might not be the biggest cause—there's a lot of finger-pointing at social media travel influencers—but we are not completely blameless.
What wasteful behavior might you be unintentionally promoting?
These are Canva stock images used as examples.
- "Trash the Dress" shots. Can they be cleaned or worn again? What mess are you leaving behind?
- Wedding favors. Balloon and lantern releases create trash and fire hazards.
- Cake smashes and champagne sprays. Are we glorifying food waste?
- Smoke bombs. They are generally full of chemicals that are not particularly nice.
- A hen party/bachelorette with one-time-use items like bridesmaid swimsuits.
2. Economic sustainability
Making money in your business is vital to ensure long-term survival. An economically sustainable business maintains growth and profitability over time without compromising future resources or opportunities. For instance, if you are over popularizing a location and are no longer able to work there, that can impact your bottom line.
Promoting economic sustainability means running our businesses in a financially responsible way so that we can pay taxes to support sustainable development. Our taxes support access to health care and education, legal systems, infrastructure, and a healthy social system. While it can feel like the government is just taking money they didn't earn, they are a really important part of doing business and paying back for the work you can do as a photographer.
Creating jobs by outsourcing or hiring someone supports economic sustainability. Working with freelancers and outsourcing the jobs that you don't particularly love to do so that you can make more money doing the things that you want to do supports sustainability within your own economy.
3. Social and cultural sustainability
Social and cultural sustainability is about identifying and managing the impacts that you have on all members of society. A broader sense of social and cultural sustainability includes things like diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Are we supporting and prioritizing diversity and inclusion in our work? Are we tokenizing or stereotyping certain people, cultures, or traditions to capture compelling images? Cultural respect and preserving traditions are very much a part of social and cultural sustainability.
Creating a Positive Legacy: Why It Matters
A lot of guilt can come up around the topic of sustainability. Maybe being a sustainable business doesn't align with your personal or professional goals. For most wedding photographers, it’s their dream to travel around the world and shoot epic destinations and high-end luxury weddings, so there can be feelings of conflict.
But no matter how you feel about it, there is a business incentive to embrace doing good for the future of all people and the planet. In the U.S., Millennials and Gen Z will soon have the most purchasing power out of any demographic. More people want to buy from ethical businesses and are becoming less and less tolerant, especially on things like "woke washing" — businesses that say they're sustainable and ethical, but the actions show something else. So, there is an increasing demand for sustainable businesses that prioritize inclusivity and transparency.
For bigger companies, laws are coming in about supply chain transparency. Companies need to know who their suppliers are and if they are ethical and responsible. At the moment, these laws are only for bigger businesses, but they will filter down to small businesses. We will be expected to know who our suppliers are and their ethical credentials as well.
A study earlier this year showed that consumers were willing to pay almost 10% more for a service or product from a brand that they deemed to be sustainable. So if you don't want to do it for the good of the planet and for the good of people on the planet, just remember that there is also a business incentive to start thinking about sustainability and your impact.
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Steps You Can Take As A Photographer
Lead with actions.
Show people what you are actively doing in your business to be more sustainable.
Avoid vague terms.
We see terms all the time like “good for the planet,” “inclusive,” — what do they even mean? Be specific.
Be honest.
People want to work with brands that are more sustainable and ethical but they don't expect you to be perfect. They want you to be honest about what you can do better and how you plan to get there.
Measure your emissions.
Use this spreadsheet Cat created with a data scientist specifically for photographers to calculate their carbon footprint.
Set a reduction strategy.
Track and communicate your progress with your audience and how you're becoming more sustainable and reducing your emissions.
- If you still offer prints or albums, how are you delivering those to clients?
- Are you using suppliers who use sustainable practices within their work?
- Are you using suppliers who are more local to your clients?
- How often do you change your equipment? How can you increase the life of your equipment by servicing it regularly and buying used or refurbished equipment?
- When your equipment reaches the end of its life, can it be resold or donated?
Keep yourself accountable and educate others.
If you share images of beautiful natural locations, make sure that you also educate others on the impacts of being there, the reality of the challenges the locations are facing, and how to minimize the impact.
Be mindful of the potential impacts of your images.
If a place is vulnerable, ask yourself if you should even share the image or if you should even be there in the first place. Take some time to research what the discussions are around sustainability and environmental impact in these areas and then potentially know when it is time to say no.
Price for profit.
That means resisting urges to discount or shoot for free to get that dream booking to maintain economic sustainability.
Have multiple revenue streams.
If you were in business before the pandemic, you may have experienced the stress of losing an entire income stream. If you want to be self-employed for the foreseeable future, create an income from diverse revenue streams that aren't so dependent on each other to support yourself and your business financially.
Outsource.
It allows someone else to pay taxes and support their family and local community. It also frees up our time so that we can do more of the things that we love.
Bank ethically.
Many people are unaware that a lot of mainstream banks are investing in fossil fuel companies and companies that support things like wars and conflicts. There are many new banks focusing on ethical and sustainable investments, so make sure the money you have earned isn't going into funding the climate crisis.
Embrace diversity and educate yourself on your unconscious biases.
If you aim to be a more diverse and inclusive business, then it's not just about making sure that the images on your portfolio are diverse but also about understanding the issues and challenges that might impact your clients. Make sure that you are an ally, that you are not just using them as a token to get more business.
Educate yourself on issues that might impact people. Are you traveling to locations where they are suffering from things like water shortages? What is the impact of your traveling there?
Put people before the portfolio.
Put your client’s needs first. If your client has a religious or cultural background that you're not familiar with, educate yourself. Respect what you capture versus what you share publicly and capture things in a culturally sensitive way without reinforcing potentially harmful stereotypes.
Incorporate messages around sustainability.
Here are a few ideas:
- Do a styled shoot inspired by sustainability. For example, using thrifted vintage or upcycled clothing.
- Create guides on sustainable choices for your clients. These might include where to buy pre-loved outfits, how to use items they already have for their photo shoots and sustainable florists—let your imagination run wild.
- Talk about sustainability. Share your journey and bring other people with you. While change starts with individuals, we need collective action to get the transformation we need.
- Sign up for Photographers For People and Planet email list. This is where you’ll hear about new podcast episodes with experts and other industry professionals from all sorts of different backgrounds talking about these different themes.
We are only on this planet for a very short time, so in the work that we do as photographers let's build a legacy that we can be proud of, to say that we didn't just do amazing work but that we actually did things to create meaningful change and leave things better than we found them.
Subscribe to “The Photographer’s Problem: A Narrative Podcast” on YouTube or Spotify for more Masterclass content and interviews with professional photographers.
