Resources for Environmental and Sustainability Communicators
The world has changed and climate advocates are having to change with it, adapting plans and campaigns to a profoundly new external environment. Timing and sensitivity are paramount in communicating climate change during Covid-19 – otherwise the climate sector risks undermining climate action for the long term. So what does the evidence say about how to engage people on climate...
What comes to mind when you think about climate change? Polar bears perhaps? Melting ice caps? But do these images make climate change feel relevant to your life? Do they motivate you to take action? Research indicates that for most audiences these images have the opposite effect. Together with the Climate Visuals team at UK-based Climate Outreach, Resource Media has...
This document presents a reanalysis of the data and the conclusions reported by Humane League Labs on January 25, 2015, in the blog post titled Report: Which farm animal photos are most likely to inspire people to eat vegan? Using regression analysis of the provided data, our reanalysis finds that photos of sick or injured animals, large groups of animals,...
A narrow visual vocabulary currently determines climate change in the public mind: polar bears, melting ice-caps, smokestacks and – as the results of our Climate Visuals research show – potentially polarising images of environmental protesters. This can undermine the effectiveness of campaign messages by failing to engage audiences, and can detract from the reach and value of journalistic reporting on...
Despite the energy and resources our community dedicates to communication strategies for written and spoken campaign materials, the amount of research on how to effectively engage people using visual images of climate change is much more limited. As a result, an easily-recognisable climate change iconography has taken root over the past 25 years. This narrow visual vocabulary still determines climate...
Every day, thousands of images of climate change are shared around the world. But while research on the verbal and written communication of climate change has proliferated, our understanding of how people interpret visual images of climate change is limited to a much smaller number of academic studies, which do not provide much in the way of practical guidance for...
Americans love energy efficiency. Poll after poll shows that overwhelming majorities of Americans have positive feelings about energy efficiency. So why aren’t there more policies in place to support this popular clean energy strategy? The answer also lies in those polls: While energy efficiency is viewed positively, people generally think it should be an issue of personal responsibility—not an objective...
The power of photographs to engage the public with multifaceted, complex issues of global scope such as war, hunger, and terrorism has been widely discussed and researched by media and social studies. However, all too often images accompanying “environmental” stories in the news are chosen according to worn out stereotypes of nature, whereby the image serves merely as an illustrative...
This Special Report from the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions (PICS) is a synthesis of key findings from a cluster of PICS funded Social Mobilization research projects, conducted in British Columbia (BC) during 2010 – 2014. This report explains “what works” and “what doesn’t work” in engaging the public and motivating people to act on climate change solutions. Included in...
If you have ever struggled with the communication of uncertainty, then this handbook is for you. It distills the most important research findings and expert advice into a few pages of practical, easy- to-apply techniques providing scientists, policy-makers and campaigners with the tools they need to communicate more effectively around climate change…. This handbook offers some strategies for closing the...
