The stories we hear about climate change shape how we as a society respond to it.
Very often our assumptions about the ways we can engage and galvanise audiences tend not to work as expected.
Take fear. There’s often a sense that if we could just tell people how bad things are going to get, we’ll prompt action. But research and experience shows that this can prompt disbelief or abject fatalism.
That’s why we, at Heard, created Climate Stories That Work: a programme to help turn up the urgency, without bringing people down. To catalyse big picture, can-do thinking, instead of guilt and shame.
This is storytelling and communication proven to resonate with people. Because, in this situation, we all have agency. As storytellers, as citizens and as humans.
So, we work with anyone with a platform who wants to engage audiences on climate. Sometimes they’re individuals – in the past that’s been musicians, actors, influencers. Other times they’re organisations, media outlets or production teams.
We help people think about how they can put climate change front and centre without pushing people away. How they can incorporate it across different stories and formats.
Our insights are based on solid evidence of what works, supported by the best research and examples.
How does it work? Well, we’re flexible. It depends on what our collaborators need.
Often it takes the form of informal interactions. These are behind-the-scenes workshops – one-to-one or in a group – that provoke conversation and thought around how to build climate into communication. That might be information, education or entertainment.
Climate Stories That Work has collaborated with a range of partners.
In media, everyone from the BBC to Attitude Magazine. We engaged with teams from the One Show to The Archers, and worked with the team behind the iconic documentary series Blue Planet II to tell new stories about the connection between our ocean and climate.
We collaborated with The Duke Of Cambridge’s inaugural Earthshot Prize – The Royal Foundation said our support was “instrumental” in the design and language of a project that’s reached millions of people around the world.
Alongside this, we regularly share resources and insights (*nudge nudge* watch the video below).
We’re also advocates for effective communication around climate change (here we are talking about it in the media: BBC, the Guardian, Sounds Like A Plan podcast).
So, if you have a platform and want to learn about more effective communication around the climate crisis – get in touch… we’d be excited to create change together.
Heard also runs programmes in areas such as children’s palliative care, poverty, migration, transgender experiences and domestic abuse and sexual violence.
