Jory&Co team members (left to right) Charlotte McCrae, Ben Jory, Frana Hollands and Jonti Griffin.
A Pāpāmoa-based creative agency is behind the campaign for one of Netflix’s latest documentaries.
Jory&Co created the brand, campaign identity and website for Unplastic Your Life.
The initiative runs alongside the Netflix documentary The Plastic Detox.
The studio spent years specialising in social and environmental impact work.
Creative director and founder Ben Jory said he built a niche that grew a team passionate about its work.
“I thought I just wanted to work on projects that are doing good for the planet and people.”
Jory&Co, after 14 years in this space, said it had established a strong international reputation with most of its clients in Europe and the US.
“We fly a bit under the radar here in New Zealand. But that’s starting to change.”
It won consecutive Webby Awards for its campaign Cap Plastic Now, which tackled the role of oil in plastic production.
The Ocean Preservation Society, an Oscar award‑winning team in the US, then commissioned Jory&Co for Unplastic Your Life.
The documentary followed six couples facing unexplained fertility issues as they dramatically cut their exposure to plastic.
Jory said their journey challenges perceptions of plastic pollution, bringing it into focus as a personal health issue rather than a remote environmental one.
“Global fertility rates have dropped over 50% in the past 50 years. Most people don’t connect that to the plastics in their kitchen or bathroom, and that’s exactly what the film does.”
The creative agency’s approach was to shake people out of complacency, then give them something practical to change.
“Visually it’s bold and uncompromising - monochrome with toxic green running through it, representing the forever chemicals building up inside us.”
Jory, a father to two young girls, said reading about microplastics found in placentas and breastmilk made the issue hard to miss.
“I think a lot of Bay of Plenty families would feel the same way if they knew what the research was showing.”
“That’s partly why I wanted to get the word out locally. This affects everyone.”
The agency’s team is spread across six countries.
Jory said it worked better than people might expect.
Time zones are the biggest challenge when client calls happen in New Zealand’s evening.
However, “living here is great for perspective. You’re not caught up in the noise of a big city”.
There was “something fitting about doing work on ocean conservation and climate from a place like the Bay of Plenty”.
Jory&Co plans to continue growing its work in the impact space.
“More climate tech, more conservation, more campaigns that actually move people to act.”
Jory said doing the same work in New Zealand was “long overdue”.
He and his team built the brand and website for Lawyers for Climate Action NZ late last year.
Lawyers for Climate Action NZ executive director Jessica Palairet said communicating environmental issues was difficult, and needed a balance of urgency and hope.
She said the challenge demanded a specialised skillset. This could be hard to find in a small market such as New Zealand.
“Having Kiwis, like Ben and his team, who have done such amazing work with large international NGOs, supporting small New Zealand organisations like ours is amazing.”
Bay of Plenty Envirohub chief executive Laura Wragg said it was exciting to see a local agency involved with the documentary.
“We should be genuinely proud to have that kind of purpose-led creative talent based here in the Bay of Plenty, using their skills to help bring important environmental issues like this to a global audience through platforms like Netflix.”
Heightened awareness should push people to rethink their reliance on single‑use plastics, she said.
The kitchen — Use glass or stainless‑steel containers. Never microwave plastic; heat accelerates the leaching of chemicals. Swap plastic chopping boards for wood.
Your water — Filtered tap water in a glass or stainless steel bottle over single-use plastic.
Rethink your cookware — Replace scratched non‑stick pans with cast iron or stainless steel. Once that coating starts scratching, you’re eating it.
Food packaging — Buy fresh where you can and avoid plastic-wrapped produce.
Receipts — Decline a paper receipt and go digital instead. Most contain BPA/BPS chemicals that absorb through your skin.
The bathroom — Shampoo bars, bar soap, bamboo toothbrushes. Small swaps that add up.
Your clothing — Synthetic fabrics shed microplastic fibres when they are washed. A microfibre filter bag can catch some of it before it enters the water system.
Zoe Blake is a multimedia journalist at the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post.