Focus on people
Keep people at the centre of your messaging. Demonstrate the role that we as human beings have in the climate crisis, across all different kinds of content – model what we can do, and how we can do it.
Offer role models
Offer audiences green role models to turn to. Embed climate-positive behaviours within characters that audiences can relate to, and in non-scripted, bring in trusted and popular presenters / talent to model climate-positive behaviour.
Start early
Speak to all generations. Look for opportunities to tell simple, educational and fun climate-based stories in children’s TV that engages their parents in the process.
Create community
Emphasise the co-benefits of working together at a grassroots level. Empower audiences to reach out to like-minded people in their communities and push for change.
Normalise positive behaviours
Normalise climate-positive behaviours to our homes and lifestyles. Use green product placement to familiarise your audiences with more sustainable choices, and reinforce positive associations with sustainable behaviours.
And what doesn’t?
Negativity
Instilling dread and doom in our audiences when communicating the seriousness of the climate crisis can often backfire. Fearmongering can result in audiences losing any sense of agency and their ability to act, paralysing them in a state of hopelessness.
Information overload
Overwhelming audiences with too much density of information can leave them feeling alienated, confused, and anxious. Keep messaging simple, don’t get bogged down in the details.
Preaching
No one likes to feel as though they are being told off or lectured to. Guilt can sometimes be a helpful motivator to act, but pushed too far it can stray into blame, causing audiences to react defensively (or to switch off from the messaging entirely).
Generic content
Be specific to your audience and avoid compromising your content by shoehorning in generic green messaging that doesn’t ‘fit’. It’s a difficult balancing act, but embedding sustainability themes into our programming needs to feel authentic if it is to connect with our audiences, as well as entertaining them.
Organisational spotlight:
Check out these great organisations working at the intersection of climate and storytelling
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Heard
Climate stories that work: Six ways to change hearts and minds about climate change
This guide to framing offers ideas and sentiments around climate storytelling that can be used and expressed in a range of different ways.
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BAFTA albert
Climate Content: Audience Insights
Check out this review from BAFTA’s Albert, which outlines the latest research on what makes an effective depiction of climate change on-screen and how this can impact audience behaviour.
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Futerra
In this toolkit, Futerra offers guidance on how to create climate stories that break the mould and define the paths for a new reality.
Find out more:
- Climate Spring is a collective of both screen industry and climate experts, established with the intention of bringing climate themes to film and TV narratives and empowering audiences to take action. Check out this article from Climate Spring on How stories work.
- Check out this article by writer, historian and activist, Rebecca Solnit, about bringing imagination and creativity to our climate stories, and the importance of avoiding despair.
- This Wired piece by Bella Lack makes the case for emotional resonance as the key to successfully communicating the scale of the climate crisis.
- In this paper, Kris de Meyer, Emily Coren, Mark McCaffrey and Cheryl Slean present their research on Transforming the stories we tell about climate change: from ‘issue’ to ‘action’.
- This Global Report from the Potential Energy Coalition about climate messaging and motivating the public, asks the questions: Does the world want action on climate? And how can we motivate the public to accelerate progress?
- This report from the Behavioural Insights Team highlights The Power of TV in encouraging audiences to decarbonise their lifestyles.
- Take a look at this post from Nesta about the public's changing attitudes to net zero and climate change.
- The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero tracks public attitudes in the UK in relation to subjects such as low carbon home heating.