Jamie Lee RR 5 – Lessons in Environmental Communication to an NGO

Over the years, scientists and academics have multiplied the available knowledge
about climate change. Unfortunately, the field has morphed into an information overload.
As a student in environmental studies and law, I have become no stranger to lengthy texts.
I am also put off by inaccessible jargon, and so I can empathize with the average person
who is bombarded by the apocalyptic climate change scenarios. We cannot fault people
for being apathetic when they cannot relate to the urgency. Therefore, effective
environmental communication can bridge the knowledge gap and galvanize the masses
to push for climate action.
My group project sought to understand the behavior of Singaporean internet users
who come across information on Singapore’s environmental scene. If over 70% of
Singaporeans know that climate change is a problem, why do local environmental NGOs
lack momentum? We wanted to learn more about them by collecting surveys, but in a
time of Cambridge Analytica and deliberate online falsehoods, most people would be
mistrustful about giving data to a faceless online entity. Hence this project wanted to be
a two-way exchange where we could gain insights about the user but also give them
something in return. Our survey was fashioned into a short quiz that would tell users
their ‘environmentalist profile’. Following the terms of environmental policymaking
literature, you could also call us ‘knowledge brokers’ of the Singaporean environmental
NGO scene. We curated the thirty organizations that would be linked to individuals who
indicate that they would like to take action in the Year for Climate Action. If the user
indicated a specific area of interest, we would match them to an appropriate Singaporean
environmental NGO.
I learned that being an effective environmental communicator requires a deep
understanding of the target audience. Since I was tasked to draft the final
environmentalist profiles, I incorporated environmental psychology principles. My
writing was grounded by the audience segmentation literature. I focused on segmenting
by age because we acknowledged the generational differences in people’s responses
towards climate change (Detenber et al.). For example, I placed a line about relating
health and well-being to a green Singapore for older adults. As for youths, I tried to
capitalize on their affinity for youth empowerment and social justice. I standardized the
positive framing across all three age groups because I did not want them to be paralyzed
by individual ineffectiveness, and thereafter fail to act. I also used Singlish colloquialisms
to localize our messaging. Our quiz pretest affirmed these methods, as someone
remarked that the profile was like an ‘eco-horoscope’ which made them feel good. Thus,
mentioning familiar subjects to our target audience is important for relating climate
change to their personal values and ideas.
The second lesson I learned that environmental communications can be effective
in different creative forms. Other projects utilized fiction-writing to provoke their
reader’s imagination of a better climate future. In a choose-your-own-adventure novel
and satirical newspaper on climate action, I learned the authors crafted the utopian vision
of a better world against the backdrop of our current state of human-induced climate
change. They created characters with agency, which is important to reinforce the power
of individual action. World building is also important because takes the reader away from
the negative doomsday predictions of climate change. These forms of environmental
Jamie Lee RR 5 – Lessons in Environmental Communication to an NGO

literature can communicate positive emotions like hope and optimism that will push back
against negative reactions to climate change. The fields of environmental science and
policy can learn from the environmental humanities discipline and their strengths in
reaching wider audiences through creative mediums. Sometimes, creative writing can be
more effective than hard, textual facts and academia. It is accessible, visceral, and emotive.
Finally, I learned that social media marketing needs to be the centerpiece of any
environmental NGO’s communication strategy. The advertising industry sells ideas,
products, and even personas to engage the market. In our digital age, most marketing is
done online. A successful campaign would help businesses gain customers. Branding is
pivotal for the user’s recognition and buy-in to an environmental call-to-action. Our
project did not want to start a new identity, but instead we linked up with the Sustainable
Solutions Network (SSN). We called everyone an ‘#SSNvironmentalist’ to raise awareness
about the SSN and increase the legitimacy of the quiz. We also saw the importance of
social media sharing and provided links to share on major platforms like Facebook and
Whatsapp. If the environmental movement needs to mobilize people for effective climate
action, the widest reach is through the internet. Hence, by paying attention to branding
and coming up with a coherent message that can be liked and shared on the internet,
environmental communications can go viral.
Communication is an integral part of the fabric of human society. It has helped us
to pass on knowledge so that it can be understood and reinterpreted by the next person.
I believe that effective environmental communication is the Rosetta Stone of the ES tribe.
It can help people to decode the vast realm of environmental knowledge and make
messages about climate change ‘stick’ in their consciousness. Instead of making climate
change a depressing subject, we need people to be feel empowered by recognizing they
can make a change. Any environmental messaging must be reinforced by positive
emotions and linked to the issues people care about. While environmental
communication can be circulated online, it is the hope of our environmental studies field
that it translates to offline action.