I count – we all count: Public campaigns on Climate Change - CSR in Europe, Middle East and Africa -
CSR in Europe, Middle East and Africa » I count – we all count: Public campaigns on Climate Change
I count – we all count: Public campaigns on Climate Change
A few weeks ago I attended Ethical Corporation’s conference on Climate Change communications in London. It was fantastic and inspiring to see so many companies and organisations present their strategies on climate change communications. Personally, I was most impressed by the presentation on “The I Count Climate Change Campaign” by Ashok Sinha from “Stop Climate Chaos”, a coalition of over 50 organisations – mainly environmental NGOs – in the UK. Last fall, this coalition launched the public campaign “I Count” in the UK to inspire citizens to take action against climate change and to increase pressure on the UK Government to take action against global warming.

We found the tips in their book “Your step-by-step guide to climate bliss” very inspiring and bought copies for HP’s biggest customer event in Europe, taking place next week. We added a bookmark with HP tips specifically on reducing the impact of climate change through IT. The “I Count” message fits in neatly with what we do at HP.

I’m very impressed with this campaign and similar ones that are going on in the UK. Living in Germany, I don’t yet see any similar popular public campaigns that encourage people to take action. Most of the communications I have seen lately rather scare people and make them feel powerless. So I think it is about time that companies, organisations and government in this country start a public awareness campaign that positions “being green” or “saving the climate” as exciting and sexy. By using positive, encouraging messaging and showing the benefits of taking action, I believe, especially young people could be encouraged to become change agents that can make a real difference.

I would be really interested to know if such campaigns are being planned or carried out in any other countries and if you know any organisations or companies that engage in such campaigns. Or is this all just a UK phenomenon that won’t work elsewhere?

Ulrike Haug
HP Corporate Affairs Communications
Posted 04-20-2007 4:04 PM by BlogArchive
Filed under:

Comments

wennec wrote Re: I count – we all count: Public campaigns
on 05-25-2007 10:33 AM
Seeing as how all of the above is true, it would be nice if HP had the option to lease hybrid cars (e.g. Toyota Prius and Honda Civic Hybrid) via the company car scheme.
Powered by Community Server (Non-Commercial Edition), by Telligent Systems