Read the full supplement here.

Green is funky, Green is sexy, Green is wacky!

If you think that climate change and sustainability communications are dull and boring, well think again. Here is a sample of exciting comms that intend to showcase environmentally friendly behaviour as cool and sexy.

“God save The Green”

These three short movies directed by Nadege Winter aim to inform people about energy efficiency by diverting the traditional codes of environmental activism.  Imagine that you run into a peep show. You see a beautiful pin-up naked, but instead of engaging in an erotic conversation, the beautiful woman gives you a lesson of ecology.

Unfortunately you can see these only from France. But here is the teaser that will, I hope, feed your imagination.

“Fuck For Forest”

FFF is a project created by a non-profit environmental organisation founded in Norway.  The two persons behind the concept adopted a refreshing perspective to help addressing deforestation issues. FFF basically produces pornographic films whose profits go directly to reforestation projects. They were officially backed by the Norwegian government and received seed funding to help launch the concept.

You can buy their videos here.

“Green Porno”

Green Porno is a series of short movies written and directed by the ex-model and actress Isabella Rossellini. The quirky little movies combine ecology and pornography. Both comic and instructive they are the result of genuine scientific research and observation. They help viewers understand how gnats, cockroaches and other bees reproduce. An anthem to biodiversity….

You can watch the three episodes on Sundance Channel.

Author Caroline Martinot

GREEN is delighted an article about their 2009 Green Awards is featured in the “National Geographic Green” first issue.

National Geographic names the Green Awards as the “Green Oscars” and writes : “Proving your business is worth its weight in green initiatives has become increasingly important, not least since the creation of The Green Awards.”

National Geographic Green magazine is a quarterly magazine supplement “dedicated to exploring the broad er environmental debate and offering information about consumer products and choices” .The free 120-page publication ‘GREEN’ is being distributed to 250,000 subscribers with the December issue of National Geographic magazine. The first issue entitled “How green is London”, explores the capital’s ecological credentials.

You can read the full issue and the Green Awards article at http://www.greennatgeo.co.uk

Credits: National Geographic winter 09-10

Author: Caroline Martinot

2010 has been declared the International Year of Biodiversity (IYB) by the United Nations. It was officially launched on January 10th in Berlin by Angela Merkel and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. The global campaign is being run by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) which was created after the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 to ensure the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity.

The campaign is an opportunity to promote the understanding of ecosystems and to raise awareness of the importance of biodiversity, the variety of life around the planet and how human activity is endangering it. And ultimately to slow if not to stop the extinction of many species.

“You are biodiversity. Most of the oxygen you breathe comes from plankton in the oceans of the world and lush forests around the globe. The fruit and vegetables you eat were likely pollinated by bees, and the water you drink is part of a huge global cycle involving you, clouds, rainfall, glaciers, rivers and oceans.”IYB Message (excerpt)

The campaign aims to impact both the world’s decision makers and citizens.

Indeed, 2010 will be punctuated by a series of official events.  On January 21st and 22nd in Paris, the UNESCO hold an inaugural event to present what we know about biodiversity and raise awareness of the alarming rate of biodiversity loss among world leaders.  During this meeting Ahmed Djoghlaf, Executive Secretary of the CBD highlighted that  member states “failed to fulfil the target to reduce the rate of loss of biodiversity by 2010” and warned that biodiversity was being lost at an “unprecedented rate”; stressing thereby the urgency of drastic actions. But as a good communicator and as recommended by the UN Campaign Guidelines, Ahmed Djoghlaf also instilled optimism and excitement to his audience by reminding them of the regional successes.  “We need to identify these important successes and build upon them as we prepare the next strategic plan of the CBD.”

Current trends make it hard to share his optimism.  Indeed, in 2010, approximately 34,000 plant and 5,200 animal species face extinction (the current global species extinction rate is estimated to be 50 to 1 000 times higher than the natural background extinction rate). Forests are home to much of the known terrestrial biodiversity, however, forest biodiversity is increasingly threatened as a result of deforestation, and about 45 per cent of the Earth’s original forests are gone, mostly during the 20th century. Climate change is also progressively becoming a more significant driver of biodiversity loss.

Anyway, in the UK the IYB is supported by the campaign “Biodiversity is life”. It showcases simple things you can do every day to preserve biodiversity: i.e. “eat organic”, “seek out a rare British food crop or animal, like Scottish Beremeal and support biodiversity by eating it”, “don’t mow your lawn”. There will be also a plethora of events run all over the country for the public. From the dodgy exhibition The Occurrence of Malformation in Amphibians (London 5- 31 March) to the hippie Bristol Festival of Nature (12–13 June).

The UN campaign for biodiversity preservation is well done. The UN have led to a multitude of national and local campaigns. By adopting some clear communication guidelines the UN incites the national actors to apply some basic communications tricks to foster awareness and behaviour change such as targeting audiences, being inspiring and translating the messages into practical actions. It’s tricky to assess the success of such planetary campaigns. The UN seems to be good at mobilising political and it’s a good thing that they delegate the task of communicating to citizen, to local actors. But who remember that 2009 was the International Year of Natural Fibres?

“It is hard to imagine a more important priority than protecting the ecosystem services underpinned by biodiversity. Biodiversity is fundamental to humans having food, fuel, clean water and a habitable climate.” Professor Georgina Mace

It’s a fact: Climate change communication can sometimes be dim and dull. Few communication campaigns succeed in reaching their targets, raising awareness and sparking off a reaction. Add to this that many campaigns are aiming at hitting an unidentified and obscure target known as “the people”. Defining your target, digging into its aspirations, motivations and the channels to reach it, is the preliminary step of any successful communication campaign.

This task can be even harder when you try to reach an audience which defines itself as “not mainstream” and is fighting hard not to be labelled or targeted. But this is exactly the challenge that Greenpeace and the Blacksmoke art collective tackled when they set up a project to communicate climate change issues to the British underground “scenesters”, a young British sub-culture group (“urban middle class adults and older teenagers with interests in non-mainstream fashion and culture” –Wikipedia).

The Danger Global Warming Project is an independent multimedia initiative aimed at raising awareness around climate change issues through the medium of art and digital media.  Artists from all over the world were asked to incorporate Greenpeace’s black and yellow warning tape motif into artworks of any forms. As a result, multimedia pieces of art (video, image, installation…) were submitted from all over the world.

The collective has efficiently dug into its audience culture to highlight its motivations (the hunt for exclusive arts) and aspirations. The campaign features sharp music bands like Utah Saints and underground stars such as Bruce LaBruce and Billy Childish; artists few people know, but icons for the British underground scene. Blacksmoke is going against a majority of climate change campaigns that feature global celebrities such as Leonardo Di Caprio, thus aiming at reaching the wide majority of “people”.

Blacksmoke aim at creating a buzz in the British underground scene and on the internet. Visuals and clips are relayed on the web through Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube etc.

One can however question the efficiency of such an unconventional campaign. Indeed the use of alternative artists pushes the target audience to focus more on the communication channel than on the actual message. Just flick through the comments posted underneath the pieces of art on the internet and you will see that the majority of posts are actually more interested in the artistic happening than in the message conveyed.

The campaign manages to reach its target audience (get a foot in the door) but actually fails to transmit the message (pass the door) and therefore inspire action. This observation leads to the question to what extent climate change communication can be tailored to an audience’s motivations and “scene” without dissolving the message in everyday life inspirations.

As an example of the material featured in this campaign, you can watch below the Danger Global Warming tune, remixed by Utah Saints and video clip by Alexandre Athane, “As an allegory for recycling, influential musicians and DJ’s from around the world are remixing the official Danger Global Warming theme tune, featuring lead vocals by Hugh Cornwell and a 35 piece orchestra”.

Caroline Martinot

Article reproduced, author: Donald Carli*

Most people will tell you that they care about saving our forests, but they tend to be uninformed or misinformed when it comes to knowing the causes of deforestation or some of the places being affected most significantly by land use change that kills trees, pollutes rivers and contributes to climate change. Until recently the conventional wisdom has been to demonize paper and print media as the major culprit behind “killing trees” and to idealize digital media as “green and groovy” alternative without consideration for the full backstory or life cycle footprint of either.

Pixels Don’t Grow on Trees

Paper and print media supply chains are far from being sustainable, but may be far less of a threat to forests than the “Tree-Wash” claims about how digital media saves trees or how pixels are greener than pages. “Tree-Wash” is my term for a special class of “greenwash” making false, misleading or unsupported marketing claims that ignore the causes of deforestation associated with digital media, or that fail to identify the actual trees and forests allegedly being saved or planted.

However, the Copenhagen Climate Summit and technologies developed to verify land use are likely to play a major role in changing the status quo with regard to foot-printing forests, identifying trees and the calculating the climate impacts of coal-powered IT.

Are You Seeing REDD yet?

Deforestation and the sustainable management of the world’s forests are serious issues that should be top of mind given the world’s focus on climate change. Trees sequester carbon equal to half of their dry weight, and scientists estimate that as much 20 percent of total emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) are emitted due to deforestation, land use change and forest degradation. For that reason, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) is a major issue that will be addressed in Copenhagen.

Sustainable forestry will play an increasingly important role in supporting the literacy and sanitary existence of the world’s growing population. In addition to providing millions of jobs and providing the wood fiber used to produce over 350 million tons of paper per year, the world’s forests also serve as the planet’s “lungs” by converting or “sequestering” atmospheric carbon dioxide into woody biomass and providing other important environmental services. In addition, sustainably harvested forest biomass will increasingly be employed by a new generation of integrated biorefineries to replace fossil fuel energy and petrochemical feedstocks.

According to some reports just one day’s deforestation is equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions of eight million people flying to New York; in order to address such a serious challenge and provide a basis to monitoring the reduction of deforestation and forest degradation, an impressive array of geo-locative and remote sensing capabilities are being developed to map the world’s forests and identify the location of individual trees with startling precision.

For example, as part of the Global Forest Resources Assessment 2010, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and its member countries and partners is undertaking a global remote sensing survey of forests covering the whole land surface of the Earth. FAO is also providing technical support for national forest assessments and the establishment of national forest monitoring systems. See: Global Forest Resources Assessment

Do You See the Forest or the Trees?

Remote sensing of forest biomass and geo-locative tagging of trees will become increasingly important as the exemption of carbon dioxide emissions from bioenergy use will only be appropriate if there is a system that also counts emissions from deforesting land and land use activities that degrade forest ecologies. In that way, if biomass for energy use results in deforestation, emissions are counted as land use emissions equivalent to fossil fuel emissions. However, these new applications will also be making it possible to stem the tsunami of “Go Digital, Save Trees” Tree-Wash marketing claims that many marketers of e-billing, e-books and digital media have been flooding the market with.

One of the little known but significant causes of deforestation in the United States related to digital media is the practice of Mountain Top Removal, employed to mine the coal used to generate electricity in states like West Virginia. In 2008 over 41 million tons of coal were extracted by means of Mountain Top Removal in West Virginia. Coal provides the majority of electric power in 32 states, and 99 percent of the electricity generated in West Virginia comes from coal.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that by 2013 an area the size of Delaware will have been deforested to extract coal. In addition to the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the energy consumed by digital media’s IT infrastructure, the deforestation, toxic air pollution and water pollution impacts associated with coal mining, coal combustion and coal waste need to be considered before making claims about digital media being greener than print or saving trees.

Truth in Augmented Reality

Deforestation, illegal logging and land-use changes that result in greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental damage are serious matters that billions of people care about. With today’s advanced remote sensing and geo-location capabilities consumers have every reason to expect marketers making claims about their offerings saving trees, or resulting in the planting of trees, to identify the trees in question and account for the life cycle impacts associated with their products. Even if the FTC does not yet prosecute such cases, that would not preclude a competitor from calling on the National Advertising Review Council to review the truthfulness and accuracy of a green marketing claim.

As we enter the “Post Madoff” trust-but-verify age of social-media powered transparency and climate awareness, it is becoming more possible and important than ever to monitor the green message content and supply chain impacts of advertising. Pixels may not grow on trees, but it is increasingly likely that remote sensing and augmented reality pixels can and will be used to hold marketers responsible for the carbon footprint of their media supply chains and the truthfulness and accuracy of advertising claims they make about saving or planting trees.

*Author: Donald Carli
Senior Research Fellow
Institute for Sustainable Communication
http://www.sustaincom.org

Author - Rosemary Randall

Psychoanalysis has a complex view of the human psyche and its motivations. Its theories assume that we do not necessarily know ourselves well, that we hide our less worthy motives from ourselves, repress our unacceptable passions and that our sense of self may be contingent and fragile. How might such theories help us understand issues of identity in relation to climate change?

The sociologist Anthony Giddens calls the current period one of ‘late’ or ‘high’ modernity, a post-traditional order characterised psychologically by doubt and existential uncertainty. It is a period in which capitalism has become intensely consumer focused, its reach and systems have become truly global and aggressive marketing techniques – often making use of psychoanalytic insights to do with sexuality and desire – have become the norm. Objects of consumer desire are created and coded around identity markers: people ‘like you’ buy this or that. People ‘like you’ will be excluded or become social pariahs if you do not. Identity appears at this level to be a matter of individual choice, selected from a range of market-influenced options.

The questions and issues that patients bring to the consulting room have changed. Although the same bedrock of depression and anxiety can be discerned, the troubles of late modernity are filtered through preoccupations with ‘Who am I?’ ‘Where is my life going?’ and doubt and dissatisfaction at what life offers.

Moral commentators might see such questions as indicative of decadence or self-indulgence. However psychoanalysis notes in them a fragility and vulnerability in the basic sense of self that has damaging consequences for the individual who suffers from it.

Such people need constant confirmation and affirmation from others, are subject to experiences of fragmentation and disintegration, and easily experience the crippling emotions of shame and self-consciousness when faced with even the mildest criticism from self or others. Their very existence can feel in doubt and this inner self-doubt is often mirrored by outer self-aggrandisement and omnipotence.

In the UK the work of Winnicott and in the US the work of Kohut have led the way in unscrambling the early, pre-oedipal origins of this vulnerability. It is well summarised in Phil Mollon’s aptly titled book ‘The fragile self: the structure of narcissistic disturbance’. While we see this fragile self writ large in the consulting room, we also see it writ small in day-to-day encounters and in the well-noted difficulties that individuals have in making the life-style changes that climate change requires of people in the developed nations. Where a vulnerable identity is supported by buying into the ‘right’ consumer options and life-style, change is hard.

Tim Jackson and other commentators have noted the complex relationship between material goods and a socially constructed sense of identity but I would like to suggest that psychoanalysis can offer help in how we try to effect the necessary social change.

If we understand the vulnerability and fragility of self that underlies the attachment to material goods then our approach to climate change shifts from a focus on engaging the public through convincing/persuading/messaging to a focus on supporting/listening/understanding.

Instead of looking for the ‘right’ way to communicate we should explore how to create social settings that both respect people’s fragile identities and establish and nurture alternative social norms. We can use both existing networks that offer alternative foci for people’s identity (for example faith groups, neighbourhood groups, cultural groups) and create new forms of support that take account of the fragile ‘I’, strengthen new social identities and break the relationship between consumer goods and a functioning sense of self.

In the ‘Carbon Conversations’ project, which I presented recently at the Manchester International Festival, we use small, facilitator-led groups, that focus on values, emotions, meaning and identity to explore how people can reduce carbon emissions.

When people have space to explore their personal relationship to a high-carbon, consumption-driven life-style and when their vulnerability around identity issues can be supported, they develop the confidence and the staying power to make significant life-style changes. Clearly good facilitation is key to such groups. Facilitators need good relational skills and sensitivity to unconscious group process combined with technical knowledge, in order to deliver these groups well. However, when these qualities are present the pay-offs for members of these groups are significant: a new-found capacity to make measurable reductions in carbon emissions and a lasting and genuine commitment to creating a different kind of society.

It is my hope that the next few years will see many more projects using insights from psychoanalysis and other therapeutic models to facilitate change in a broad range of social contexts.

www.identitycampaigning.org

I noticed a recent promotion where The Energy Saving Trust and the Imperial War Museum have teamed up to promote the ‘Wartime Spirit Campaign’ to encourage people to learn from the past how to reduce waste and save energy.

It all sounds very idealistic but as a nation we’re so institutionalised in luxury and the satisfying of all our immediate desires and wants that any lesser existence would seem inconceivable.

Personally I would love to grow my own vegetables but without land and being time poor it seems like an alien concept and very idealistic. Certainly this is the case whilst living in the inner sanctum of the urban metropolis where open space is a premium to say the least.

Philip Sellwood, chief executive of the Energy Saving Trust, said: “We are certainly not advocating a return to rationing or indeed enforced personal daily allowances. However if we could adopt just a few of the practices used during the war, such as recycling bath water for watering plants, then it would go a long way towards saving energy and reducing our carbon footprint.” I do quite like the idea of using the bath water on the plants although capturing the water from the shower might prove a little more difficult. I can’t in fact remember the last time I had a bath but I guess a lot of people still do. However,  I do remember fondly sharing baths with my siblings whist growing up to save on energy and time. In fact I know sharing a bath is one of the hot tips in the ‘We Are What We Do’ series of tips, although preferably with someone you love. See http://www.wearewhatwedo.org/actiontracker/action.php?action=8

Interestingly, research conducted by the Energy Saving Trust – which provides free advice to consumers on reducing their carbon emissions and works with retailers, builders and industry to increase the availability of energy efficient products – suggests the British public might not be averse to a bit of enforced frugality. I think the recession is fast forwarding this situation as a matter of necessity and that’s probably what people need to influence their behaviour patterns.

As part of the joint campaign, the Imperial War Museum has put together a number of examples of how wartime initiatives can be adapted for the modern world, including ‘make do and mend’, ‘is your journey really necessary?’ and ‘save fuel for battle’.

From a marketing point of view it’s fascinating to see the language used and the call to actions used in these advertising campaigns during the war prior to mass market communications and the overload of insidious messages we experience today through spam. I wonder how effective these posters were in engaging people and contributing to behaviour change compared to today’s multi-million pound integrated campaigns?

ACT - Advertising Community Together is a non-profit association that showcases ads on social, environmental and sustainable development accessible on its website. They also produce a worldwide touring exhibition shown at public and professional events, conferences and debates within the communication industry. Its goal is to promote and inspire responsible communication on sustainability, equitable development and social responsibility. ACT shows how advertising professionals from all continents can use their core talent - creativity - to play a significant role in addressing today’s crucial world issues.

They are preparing a new exhibition that will be premiered in Cannes 20-26 June 2009 before starting its annual world tour. It illustrates the main issues of Sustainable Development from the environmental to the social and demonstrates the power of “creativity” on today’s crucial issues.

They are gathering worldwide ads about sustainable development themes :

- Environnemental Ads: Visual communication examples regarding environmental areas, such as Water Preservation, Climate Change, Biodiversity and natural areas Protection, Desertification, Renewable Energies…
- Social Ads: Visual illustrations on subjects such as Solidarity, Human Rights, Childhood Protection, Poverty, Education, Sanitation, Racism…and also Alcohol Abuse, Drug Addiction, Personal Health, Road Safety, Obesity Prevention, Organ Donation,..

Why become part of the ACT Exhibition?

- After 7 years, ACT is now well known by the Advertising Community as a key player in Communication and Sustainable Development topics.
- Be part of a great Worldtour of Exhibitions including Cannes 2009. Since Cannes 2008, The Expo has been seen in over 10 locations around the world including the NY Advertising Week, EACA Euro Effies, Golden Drum, IAA and more.

See www.act-responsible.org

Companies will face tougher tests when advertising their green credentials, under proposals released recently.

The Committee of Advertising Practice, the industry’s self-regulator, proposes to expand the environmental and social responsibility sections of the broadcast advertising code, to “prevent marketers from exaggerating the environmental benefits of their products”.

The clampdown on greenwashing is part of a wider consultation into the first major changes to the advertising code in eight years.

CAP’s proposed new rules require green advertising on television to be based on the full life cycle of the advertised product or service. It also will use general principles rather than specific rules, which it says could quickly become outdated.

“Absolute claims must be supported by a high level of substantiation,” the proposed rules say, although comparative terms such as “greener” may be allowed in some circumstances.

“It provides a catchall for the unintended and the unexpected,” said Andrew Brown, chairman of CAP and BCAP, the broadcast committee.

Complaints about greenwashing have risen sharply, reflecting the increased popularity of environmental claims in advertisements. In 2006, the Advertising Standards Authority received approximately 117 complaints about 83 advertisements, rising to 561 complaints about 410 advertisements in 2007.

Environmental claims have become a “new form of competitive language for advertisers”, requiring tighter rules that provide “less excuse through ignorance and obfuscation”, said Mr Brown.

David Norman, director of campaigns at WWF UK, whose complaint against an advertisement by Royal Dutch Shell last year was upheld by the ASA, gave the change in rules a cautious welcome.

“WWF would say certainly it sounds like a good move to strengthen regulations so that those companies who do have genuine investments in green technology and answers to climate change are rewarded for that, rather than the companies who invest in marketing.”

Mr Brown said that in general, the review of advertising rules – the first to revise broadcast and general advertising codes simultaneously in their 50-year history – was designed to help broadcasters and advertisers adapt to an increasingly fragmented media landscape.

The new rules are expected to come into force next year.