Everybody's Talking About Climate Change

Summary

Nottinghamshire and Debyshire County Councils are leading the march to educate local people about climate change. The councils’ upbeat ‘Everybody’s Talking’ campaign aims to change attitudes towards climate change by involving the public and council staff.

Key learnings

• This kind of campaign takes time and money – don’t be too ambitious at the start.
• High quality one-to-one interaction is time consuming but effective.
• Pledge forms are a good way of engaging the public.
• In partnership working, make sure all partners get something out of the project.
• Make the climate change message positive and local and reward people for their actions.

Background

Most people now accept that climate change is a reality. But nationally and locally, understanding of the problem and possible solutions is low.

Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Local Authorities’ Energy Partnership (LAEP) is a well-established partnership involving all 20 councils in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. They vary from the rural Peak District to cosmopolitan Nottingham and Derby cities.

As in the rest of the UK, residents of the two counties had low levels of understanding of climate change and little sense of empowerment. In a pre-campaign survey, less than 40 per cent of people thought that they were responsible for burning fossil fuels for energy. More than 50 per cent of people thought they had little or no influence on climate change.

Who was involved?

The LAEP partnership coordinator wrote the bid to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) Climate Challenge Fund. They provided advice and guidance to the campaign manager and campaign assistant. They also planned, coordinated and administered the campaign, working on short-term contracts until the end of April 2008.

The project board steered the overall direction of the campaign. Members were officers drawn from partner authorities, the Energy Efficiency Advice Centre (EEAC) and Groundwork Trust, chaired by the vice-chair of the LAEP.

Energy efficiency officers from all of the partner authorities promoted the campaign within their own authorities and communities. They also staffed the campaign vehicle and campaign stands at events.

EEAC staff provided event and phone support. Groundwork staff promoted the campaign to community groups. Eco-Schools officers developed schools resources. The driver of the campaign vehicle also took on the role of promoting the campaign message to the public at events.

The campaign was funded through Defra’s Climate Challenge Fund and run by the LAEP.

The challenges and how we tackled them

Back in 2006, LAEP wrote an ambitious bid to the Climate Challenge Fund. The fund was designed to positively shift attitudes of the average, relatively unaware person, towards climate change. The aim was to reach all 2.1 million residents, with a particular focus on the ‘fuel rich’ – those who do not struggle to pay their fuel bills.

Making the climate change message positive, inclusive and engaging

The councils hired consultants to provide the campaign design and message. The first company failed badly and delayed the start of the campaign by three months. The second consultancy produced a lively, eye-catching design using speech bubbles, stick figures and the ‘Everybody’s Talking’ concept. This was used on all campaign materials, the website, vehicle and other items.

Engaging members of the public

The campaign asked people to make a pledge to take some small actions to reduce their carbon emissions. These pledge forms were a good way of providing ideas for simple actions with measurable carbon dioxide and cash savings. Their weakness was that the pledges may have been too easy: many people were already doing most of the actions.

A campaign vehicle toured the two counties, visiting markets, events and workplaces. The vehicle contained climate change information and solutions, including interactive props. It proved popular with staff and the public, and the quality of face-to-face interaction was very high.

The councils produced a range of campaign ‘collateral’ items. These included cotton shopping bags and ‘carbon calculator’ wheels. They proved important in attracting people to the campaign and provided a reward for individuals who made pledges.

Other activities – in brief

A six-week radio advertising campaign had excellent adverts but was expensive and timing was important. However, it reached a huge audience.

In-house promotions to council staff had a captive audience and involved innovative use of payslips and screen savers. However, it was dependent on individual officers’ initiation.

The website was badly delayed by the first web design company and the project’s lack of experience. However, it provided resources and enabled online pledging, though this was not as successful as hoped.

Displays in libraries and council buildings made good use of existing channels and had low costs.

Articles in council publications had a huge audience and low costs but dependent on helpful press officers.
 
Talks and events with community groups were provided by Groundwork and Rural Community Councils. They reached a very diverse audience and made new connections. They were a semi-autonomous project, making for challenges in liaising at times.

Teacher training, school resource boxes and online schools resources were developed by Eco-Schools officers and consultants. The training and boxes were very popular, but the website was less successful. This again was a semi-autonomous project.

Strategy and partnerships

The campaign was very much an ‘add on’ for the energy efficiency officers involved in delivering it. Both the topic of climate change and the target audience – the fuel rich – were officially outside their remit.

Many got round this problem partially by broadening their target audience to include the ‘fuel poor’. The councils provided training in climate change communication to officers and encouraged them to see tackling climate change as an extension to their role.

They also trained the vehicle driver so that he could act as an energy advisor and engaged a self-employed climate change advisor to assist with staffing. Importantly, the pledge forms enabled the councils to claim funding from the EEAC for energy advice work.

The project had a very good level of match funding through in-kind support, valued at £297,000 over the 20 months of the campaign.

Outcomes and impacts

The project collected over 10,000 pledges – equal to a carbon dioxide saving of approximately 21,000 tonnes

In the project’s post-campaign telephone survey:

• more than 30 per cent of people had heard of the campaign – a greater level of recognition than ‘Act on CO2’ or ‘Save your 20 per cent’
• compared to the pre-campaign survey, a greater percentage of people – 54 per cent – thought that climate change was due to human behaviour.

More people had knowledge of their own contribution to a range of climate change. A greater number were very concerned about the impact of climate change in the UK.

There was also a greater level of empowerment or ‘self-efficacy’ reported in relation to climate change after the campaign. Forty-seven per cent of respondents felt their community could have ‘some’ or ‘a large’ impact on climate change. This was up from a baseline of only 27 per cent.

What could we have done better?

In retrospect, the campaign goals were very broad and ambitious and the project spread itself too thinly. There were too many threads to get up and running at the same time which resulted in very significant delays in several areas.

Internal communication was sometimes a challenge. The project learned that it is really important to keep partners informed and engaged. Regular positive updates and appreciation of partners’ efforts are vital.

Next steps

The councils plan to continue and develop many of the campaign activities. In some respects, the past year has been a warm up. As the Climate Challenge funding has come to an end, the campaign will be run on a reduced budget. This will be using partner subscriptions and funding from the East Midlands Regional Assembly (EMRA).

The EMRA funding is to be used to support groups working to reduce emissions in their own communities, through networking, web resources and workshops. The new national indicators on carbon emissions, climate change and fuel poverty provide a renewed sense of purpose and direction for the campaign. The project plans to shift its focus from attitude to behaviour change.

Some aspects of the campaign that could be improved include:

• making the pledge actions more challenging – many people were already doing most of them
• more regular communication with project partners, ensuring they know what’s happening and feel supported
• improving website optimisation and making the site more comprehensive and up-to-date
• website hosting in-house to reduce costs and make development easier
• better targeting of vehicle visits to venues and events frequented by target audience
• engaging with employers in the area to promote the campaign to employees, including vehicle visits.

Contact

Jessie Marcham, 'Everybody’s Talking' Campaign Coordinator
Derbyshire County Council
Chatsworth Hall
Chesterfield Road
Matlock DE4 3FW
telephone: 01629 580000 ext 7440
email: jessie.marcham@derbyshire.gov.uk

'Everybody’s Talking' website

Published February 2009