A New Era in Climate Communications With Natalia Vega-Tracy
This episode features a conversation with Natalia Vega-Tracy, founder of centralised communications hub, New Zero World, and multi-sector coalition, EPIC, the Earth Public Information Collaborative. It was recorded in July 2024.
Natalia is a leader in global advocacy and social impact, with more than 25 years of experience leading campaigns and content designed to influence culture and drive positive change in the world.
She’s been the driving force behind collaborations with international partners across all sectors, from progressive brands and corporations to humanitarian non-profits and both governmental and intergovernmental organizations, where her work has earned nominations and awards from many of the most renowned international festivals in the advertising world.
Natalia has been widely recognized for her work creating innovative strategies, campaigns, films and experiential events in support of the United Nations, and was named one of the “Top 10 most influential media and communications executives" for her work supporting the Sustainable Development Goals.
In 2022, she founded New Zero World to shift public opinion and promote behavioural change by building new climate narratives and positively reimagining our visions of the future. New Zero World’s flagship report entitled, “A New Era In Climate Communications” gathers world-leading research and insights from the best minds in science communications, creativity, and cultural influence. The resource is a must-read for anyone working in and around climate communication, with chapters dedicated to practically every facet of the craft.
In 2024, together with the Global Commons Alliance, New Zero World launched EPIC, the Earth Public Information Collaborative, with the vision to bring together businesses, media platforms, ad agencies, creators, philanthropy and, of course, science, to reposition climate change across every community on earth.
Acting as a campaign in itself, the process is designed to not only engage agencies, industry and media, but also the public. It’s described as a campaign for all of us, involving all of us – taking a whole earth approach.
Amongst other things, Natalia and I discussed the power of using creativity for good, the need to fill an imagination gap about the future we’re heading towards, and how the sausage is made when it comes to large, multi-stakeholder coalitions.
Additional links:
Check out whitepaper, A New Era in Climate Communications
Visit the New Zero World website
Explore the Earth Public Information Collaborative website
Howard Bloom’s book, Global Brain
Watch the trailer for the film, 2040
Dickon: Hi and welcome to Communicating Climate Change, a podcast dedicated to helping you do exactly that. I'm Dickon and I'll be your host as we dig deep into the best practises and the worst offences, always looking for ways to help you and me improve our abilities to engage, empower, and ultimately activate audiences on climate-related issues.
This episode features a conversation with Natalia Vega-Tracy, founder of centralised communications hub, New Zero World, and multi-sector coalition, EPIC, the Earth Public Information Collaborative. It was recorded in July 2024.
Natalia is a leader in global advocacy and social impact, with more than 25 years of experience leading campaigns and content designed to influence culture and drive positive change in the world.
She's been the driving force behind collaborations with international partners across all sectors, from progressive brands and corporations to humanitarian nonprofits and both governmental and intergovernmental organisations, where her work has earned nominations and awards from many of the most renowned international festivals in the advertising world.
Natalia has been widely recognised for her work creating innovative strategies, campaigns, films and experiential events in support of the United Nations and was named one of the top 10 most influential media and communications executives for her work supporting the Sustainable Development Goals.
In 2022, she founded New Zero World to shift public opinion and promote behavioural change by building new climate narratives and positively reimagining our visions of the future. New Zero World's flagship report entitled “A New Era in Climate Communications,” gathers world-leading research and insights from the best minds in science communication, creativity and cultural influence. The resource is a must-read for anyone working in and around climate communication, with chapters dedicated to practically every facet of the craft.
In 2024, together with the Global Commons Alliance, New Zero World launched EPIC, the Earth Public Information Collaborative, with the vision to bring together businesses, media platforms, ad agencies, creators, philanthropy and, of course, science, to reposition climate change across every community on Earth.
Acting as a campaign in itself, the process is designed to not only engage agencies, industry and media, but also the public. It's described as a campaign for all of us, involving all of us. Taking a whole earth approach.
Amongst other things, Natalia and I discussed the power of using creativity for good, the need to fill an imagination gap about the future we're heading towards, and how the sausage is made when it comes to large multi-stakeholder coalitions. So, let's get on with it, this is Communicating Climate Change with Natalia Vega-Tracy.
From your perspective, how can communication best contribute in humanity's response to the climate crisis?
Natalia: Well, to begin, the climate challenge is an an isolated challenge that is happening to the planet we are part of it. So, the importance and relevance of us understanding the effects and the stress we put into the environment is a must to know, a must to do.
I think, over time, over the years, there has been a lot of emphasis in the work on solving the problems, minimising the effects policy in place, but very little has been allocated into either in investment, either in support, either in work, to see communications as part of the solution as well, so the public in general, the people in the world, can understand and make decisions and influence their governments, their cities, their families, etcetera, and where we're going.
Dickon: Before we dig into the variety of projects and platforms that you're currently working on, I wondered if you might share some experiences from your earlier days in marketing and advertising, some experiences perhaps that have been particularly influential in shaping your approach to climate communication and the broader promotion of climate communications in your work today.
Natalia: Very interesting question. Thank you for bringing the past into the present. Because for me, you know my life, I spent my entire life in the art of communications and advertising. I started when I was 16 years old, in South America and Latin America, so I was very young, literally living, you know, out of school. I loved it. I immediately as soon as I saw what it was and the effect it has on people and culture in general with the public. I was hooked, I think.
What I saw in my 25 plus career in advertising, number one, I was very fortunate and lucky to work with incredible talented people. I was an international producer, so that means that I was like travelling around the world all the time in different cultures. And I think what I always admired is that despite the effects of what advertising costs us in terms of consumption, the art of the work is a different thing. You know, we didn't know any better. We were not system changing strategies or thinking about “what are we really doing with the planet?” We didn't know any better. So, what strikes me always is the capacity of the creative minds to invent, to come up with unexpected solutions, to inspire people, to drive culture.
A creative person has a capacity to create, but there is always the art of creation and there's a good in it. You know? It's a good human trait. And with that, there also has been a lot of conversations before I left the industry in terms of, “What are we doing with this work? How much are we influencing? Can we influence for good? Can we put our brains to work for the better humanity?” I had those conversations in 2005 and 2010 and 2012, like a long time ago. I had those conversations with people that we were spending time working on a shooting, or travelling together, or in locations from film directors to creative directors to agency owners. So that conversation has always been there about how can we put our creative minds for good use, that's something that will be incredible.
So, I was always inquisitive about creativity for good since I was an advertising. And I left advertising thinking that I want to put my skills and the skills of some people I know, they want this, for good use.
The most important brands in this world have shaped the culture of who humanity is in some degree. What people see as a, you know, “oh, that's a future I want.” We painted it. The advertising industry shapes what you want.
I think what I learned is, number one, that the human spirit and the human goodness is there and the talent and the creativity is inspiration. It's there and that is a trait that I can see now, because the creatives back then now their own agencies. The people who were the marketing accountants, now they’re chief marketing officers, so now we have bigger conversations about this and I can say that, as you know, advertising and marketing industries are also going through an incredible transition, not just because of the challenge of the economic crisis or environmental crisis, but sustainability and their own existence with technology. So, there's a lot of change that is, you know, playing in in the favour of coming up with good, great new ways of working in the future.
The amount of resources of world class expertise, we have at our disposal. I mean, you can connect everybody across every community on Earth, if we really put our best talents to work, we can do that. Like that! Like Nike will do, like Coca-Cola will do, like Google will do, like Apple will do, like Samsung will do.
So if you think about how they reach, and the penetration is so global, why don't we leverage those resources? For the sake of education, literacy about the climate crisis, so then we can reformulate this conversation about what climate change is for the people, but mostly reposition it in their minds.
Dickon: Can you please tell us about New Zero World? How did it come about and what does it hope to achieve?
Natalia: New Zero World is a labour of love. The beginning part, sharing my journey leaving the industry, is relevant, obviously. I was very lucky in 2013 to be invited to speak about creativity for good at the United Nations, and it was very exciting because I never had a chance to have a broader, different kind of public talking about this. And I was honoured and excited to learn that there were two things that were going to change the world forever, and I had no idea.
Number one was the Sustainable Development Goals and there was the beginning of the conversations to lead into the Paris Agreement, to finally have one agreement led by the UN in terms of the planet.
They invited me to be part of helping them strategise, advise, so I played different roles with the UN for many years, supporting the office of the Secretary General’s climate change team. I was in the vote during the Paris Agreement. In the room. You know, I did films and TV commercials so much, but I never had opportunity to do a multimedia for the General Assembly on the day they were voting for a climate agreement!
All of those things changed my life forever, and I'm gonna devote my work and my life to this. And I think there's so much to do. But at some point I thought, “Okay, I'm not going into the biggest challenges that I was seeing all these years, that was hitting into the communications for climate change.”
So, in 2022, I launched New Zero World. That is an initiative that is solely focused on working on climate communications. Because that's the need, that's what the world needs right now. When I started it, talking about the communication challenge, I was thinking about there are two audiences, right? One, the audience of the public. That's for me, the most urgent, that there is nothing designed or prepared for communicating to them what is the agenda? What is the strategy, what is the unified narrative? What are we trying to communicate to the people?
That's one, but the other one was with a climate community. When I say the climate community, I'm talking about global policy, governments, UN, systems, incredible work of many organisations like WWF, Nature Conservancy and the World Economic Forum, and all of those organisations, like how can they somehow unify in terms of this? And I was seeing that, I just needed to raise my hand and say that climate communications is important to them.
That was kind of like one of the first things that I thought it was important and I came with this inquiry to my good friend, Deputy Secretary General Amina Mohammed, and I said, “This is our plans for New Zero World, we just launched,” and she told me, “You need to do a research study. You can tell me many things and I know you, but nobody knows you. Nobody knows what you're talking about. You need to put a research into this.” And I did.
That's how the A New Era in Climate Communications whitepaper came about, because I think there were many of us that were raising our hands and there were many of us who were trying to do something. We just needed to come together and just push that agenda forward.
The only thing that I did, literally, is just write a good email and say, “This is my intention, this is what he need. It needs to be done. Do you want to be part of it?” I swear it was supposed to be a 30-page research and now it's a 450-page research. Everybody said yes! There was a massive positive response to be part of this.
Dickon: Amazing. Let's dig into the whitepaper. You call it a whitepaper, right?
Natalia: It needed to be called a whitepaper, unfortunately, and trust me, I tried to find a way to call it something else, but because it was a kind of academic resource, with bibliography and all of those very sensitive information that I needed to back up with a lot of specifics. It needed to be a white paper. So there you go. The whitepaper A New Era in Climate Communication.
Dickon: But it's great. It's a lesson in itself, in communicating with a different type of stakeholder, like, to make it credible, it had to be researched to make it noticeable, it had to be called the whitepaper. So kudos to you for knowing your audience. This groundbreaking whitepaper, A New Era in Climate Communications, was recently updated and made available for download, alongside a note about the significance of the timing of its release.
Could you tell us a bit more about the resource? I mean, what what can people find in there? And could you tell us more about the the path forward that it suggests and why the present moment is so important?
Natalia: Great. So, it's available digitally. So anybody can read it online, but we put it in downloadable versions because we started to get a lot of requests from academia and different universities and they needed to have that kind of downloadable version. We were trying to avoid that. But it was great that we see now that we can actually have the downloadable and we are doing it in different languages.
As you know, the World Economic Forum every year launch the Global Risk Report and this year the Global Risk Report highlights the two top global risks and it's, you know, misinformation and disinformation, and climate risk. You know, the effects of climate change.
When you think about it that if you put it together, it cannot be more obvious, right? There is a huge challenge with misinformation. There are huge efforts mobilising different kinds of information that are not truthful. We don't have really much resources on the other side by counteracting this with truthful information other than the news and the wonderful work of investigative journalists and others.
What we aim is to highlight is the importance of what we have been doing, why it hasn't been working and what it really can be done. And do all of this through different kinds of resources that we found in the whitepaper, with the amazing work that people have done.
From neuroscience to experts in the art of communicating for culture, we have different type of arts and science involved in this whitepaper, and also people with system change thinking, you know sharing their experiences, sharing case studies, and what our intention is to do moving forward.
Dickon: A huge range of experts from across communications, advertising, climate science, you know, as you said, film makers, neuroscientists, contributed to the whitepaper. But what did you find to be the biggest surprises or the biggest bombshells from bringing together such a broad body of knowledge?
Natalia: Well, to me when I read a whitepaper at the end, I just kept coming back to that there is so much talent in the world, there is so much wisdom, there is so much amazing creativity, and it gives me so much hope to see that there are people that already thought about it for a long time and that the work is there.
To see how many people were in it for a long time, the same way I have been. Our foundation, we created in 2014, is called the Global Brain Foundation. And the Global Brain Foundation was born, the name Global Brain, was born out of a theory by Peter Russell who wrote the book actually called the Global Brain, in which he talks about that the planet has its own intelligence. And it's fascinating to think about how an idea that is here, is also being born in Latin America, and it's also being born in Africa. So, it's just the planet finds a way to bring that wisdom out. And that's the first thing I saw when I read the whitepaper in a very detached way, I thought, “This is a global brain.”
Dickon: So you explained that ultimately the whitepaper was able to be downloaded because of the needs of some specific stakeholders. But I really appreciated the fact that you mix things up a bit with this whitepaper initially in how you made it available, providing access through a web-based format and that that for me was something completely novel and fascinating actually, particularly considering the massive size of it, right? The amount of resources available, to have it broken down into the chapters, to me seemed super novel and immersive, even. I wanted to ask what the thinking behind that was, initially, and also what the response was to it, both from scientists, because I think that's an important and interesting thing for listeners to understand, but also from others.
Natalia: First of all, we didn't want to do another whitepaper that is in a pdf format that nobody reads. So my first idea was, we have to do a digital form number one. I wish I had more resources to do an immersive whitepaper, which would be like the coolest of the whitepapers. We tried to do it a little bit, putting case studies and videos in there. The whole idea was to bring something that you can be in your phone and just read chapter six if you just want to read chapter six, you don't have to read the whole thing. I mean, you’re just interested in narratives and films, just go into that part. They play very well independently. That's the other way it was written.
To me, the most unexpected responses I've been getting is from educators, from the schools, from universities. That’s I think probably my most exciting response. The other response that was very exciting for me, unexpectedly, was Cannes Lions. Cannes Lions is one of our partners, and we’re doing a young greatest programme where we're trying to figure out how we can provide education to young professionals. But I received an award, as recognition for the work, and I was surprised because I wasn't really expecting it to come from that part of the industry. It came from Act Responsible, which is one of the original organisations within advertising that champion creativity for good, for many years. And for them, seeing this kind of work was very refreshing. They actually were contributors to the whitepaper along with Cannes. It was a good sentiment because it gave me the opportunity to speak about it throughout the week.
But again, and I keep saying it, it's not me. I just put it together. Yeah, it was a lot of work, but it's the work of 61 contributors, all of them amazing. There is so much goodness out there, being a collaborative work. You feel it. You know, when you see the work done and the amazing work internally of the team within New Zero World that put it together. I mean, people worked like crazy night and day.
Dickon: What can you tell us about EPIC, the Earth Public Information Collaborative? How does this intersect with, or compliment, your work with New Zero World or the Global Brain?
Natalia: So, EPIC is an epic initiative convened by the Global Commons Alliance. And you know, the Global Commons Alliance is a fantastic organisation that convenes 90+ of the most important organisations in science, mostly, with Johan Rockstrom, one of the leading scientists in the world. Tim Kelly is head of Earth HQ, which is the media arm of the Global Commons Alliance,
So Tim and I put our heads together. The whitepaper ends with “OK, so there is a gap.” What can we do to create a headquarter place for communications. And that's how EPIC came to be. So, I said to Tim, I pitched this idea to him. It's like, I think the next step for for this study, which was supported by the Global Commons Alliance as well, the whitepaper, can take us to the next level, which is to have an Earth Public Information Collaborative, where content and communications can be created, not just by us, but by many of the contributors and many of others.
And so we started thinking and working towards how this is gonna work. It's like a communications and media ecosystem to support the creation and development of content that will inform the public. You know, we need to reposition what climate change is in the minds of the public across every community on Earth. So that people understand what their role is and that every single thing they do, it matters. It really makes an influence.
You know, it has different expertise that we need to make EPIC happening. Number one, the science. And we’re very lucky with having the science of Johan Rockstrom. Based on their work, it's going to be important to have the expertise of creative minds from the advertising industry that were convening. We actually had a round table at Cannes, convening certain players. We are talking to top creatives right now and say, “Hey, do you want to be part of this?” Many of them are coming as individuals. It's like, “I know I am ex-blah blah blah. But I am also John. John is in. I don't know about this, but I'm have a responsibility to this planet, as an individual. So I want to be part of this.”
So that kind of response… I never expected it. Putting the egos out of the room, I never expected that. That kind of thing is just very encouraging. You just need to put the call, “Hey, this needs to be reimagined. How can we do something about it?”
Dickon: Could you discuss the importance of multi-sector collaboration in climate communications and how you bring together these various stakeholders? I mean, you gave us a bit of a hint there, you said kind of “build it and they will come.” But how do you bring them together to create unified messages?
Natalia: Yeah, it's not as simple as it sounds. Yes, I agree, because everybody has different interests and their organisations have different missions within the work they do and they have to really focus on that.
So I think what we're trying to do with EPIC is to first and foremost to inform ourselves, what it is that needs to be communicated? And then, like in any marketing campaign, subject that through different processes depending also on where this is going and where the audiences are.
It’s unbranded. So it's it's not my initiative. Or his. It’s the planets initiative. It's important that everybody feels certain part of ownership in it and it's interesting because the leadership council is purposely diverse and the leadership council intends to inform and advise and we take seriously the advice of them. So then we can facilitate the process of collaboration.
You know, we have put some work on thinking that what is the best way that we can keep going fast, as we need to go fast without stopping in the lane, because of processes that can potentially be bureaucratic. We're trying to be respectful of everybody's voices, but we need to be also very agile because we need to go fast. And that is something that we're trying to find a balance. And again it's a pilot. Everything is a pilot at this point and I'm totally open about it because it is, I mean, I don't really know a specific perfect way to manage it, because we're going and learning as it goes and we're listening. So things shift, you know, at Cannes we listened to some things that are gonna definitely inform our way moving forward.
So it's great to kind of have this process. I think that this the journey matters as much as destination and this is the kind of thing that I love about the work that we're doing that we're learning so much. And the team is really great about it. You know, Tim Kelly from the Global Commons Alliance and Mike Fleisch, who is the systems thinking person, and Chris Moscardi, who is the marketing director and Ross Findon from the communications, and others. It's a great group because we're all kind of trying to hold the container for that process.
Dickon: It's also really interesting to hear that the systems thinker is sitting in there, because when I spoke to a previous guest from Climate KIC, Zolla Sophoniasdottir, she's a systems perspective person, and one of her biggest kind of pieces of advice I suppose, to the community of listeners here, was best practises are good but unknowns might become the new best practises. So hearing you talk about like “we're just flying by the seat of our pants. We don't know what's gonna happen if it's to work,” that's fascinating.
Natalia: Yeah. And we're in it. So we know it's challenging too sometimes, you know like people have different opinions and judgements and stuff. And like, we know that's gonna happen. We know that's part of it, but that's the only way we know we can go. There's no other way. If we go the safe route, the traditional route, that’s not what we need to do. We're not going to get anything disruptive that it will be effective. We need to do something that is different.
Dickon: So, I'd like to touch on the issue of narrative change. One of EPIC’s goals is shifting the dominant narrative from one of despair to one of hope, possibility and human agency. How do you see this shift happening? And what can we as a community of communicators listening, what can we do to help?
Natalia: First of all, it's not going to be quick. It will require a process and time to change this perspective. I use this quote from Margaret Atwood all the time. “It's not climate change, it’s the everything change.” Everything as in the food you eat. As the clothes you wear. As the car you drive. As the house, as the job you have. That is the everything change. When I read that I was like, “oh, that's it for me. That's the thing.”
The narrative change needs to be something of “yes”, it needs to be inspiring. It needs to provide a vision of the future. It's necessary, based on the neuroscience, and the whitepaper talks about that, we need to visually see - that's how humans have learned since we learned how to do anything, you know - humans learn to do by seeing other humans do, or by seeing something that inspires them to be or to do, and that re imagination, we don't have a vision of the future that we can build. We have a vision of the future of, “If we go in this way, this is gonna happen.” Because it's happening in front of us now. But we don't have the vision of, “OK, what about if we switch a bit?” You know, there's been a couple of films, like the 2040 film, for example. You know, bringing us that hope, that sense of what is possible. But but we need way more of that.
And that is, I'm sure, a process. It needs to start with basic things to understand, that it's just not the weather, it's your food. You can think about it as your well-being. It's your health. Like, what are the common threads that we all have and we care about? It's just our lives, our health, our family or communities, our culture, what we do with our lives everyday. It's a process of understanding our lives, how they can be better and it's not one off. It's a long term thing. That require a lot of the individuals to do it. A lot of partners to do it a lot, so there's plenty of work for everybody. We always say that, it's just so much to do.
Dickon: What's the single most important aspect of communication that we should be paying attention to in our climate communication endeavours?
Natalia: Hmm, your audience is the most important thing you have to think about because it can change your whole strategy. What we urgently need is to communicate to the public. Katherine Hayhoe says the most important thing you can do about climate is to talk about it, right? And if you are a communicator, think about how you can engage, how you're saying it, because we have been preaching to the choir for already too long. The ones who are converted already, they already know the problem, too much. So now we need to move to the ones who really don't, the movable middle, and the ones who really don't understand much. And for the ones who this is becoming a political issue, relate more, personalise.
Dickon: So the flip side of the last question then is, conversely, what's the biggest mistake that you see communicators make when attempting to engage the public on climate change issues?
Natalia: I don't see things as a mistake. I just think that as a strategy, that's not working anymore. Because the fear basis is what we needed to put years ago about like, “hey, this is very urgent.” I think it's time for transformation. And, understanding the audience, right? We demonstrated already that it’s not really working right now in this current environment, what we're doing. It's just moving people away from it. Rapidly. And people don't want to engage with this problem, so we need to address it. We cannot comprehend the massiveness of this problem. But we need to go back to like, “OK, what’s in it for me? Why does it matter to me?”
Dickon: It was wonderful talking to Natalia for this episode, but what in particular stuck with you from our conversation? What will you take from it and apply it to your own work?
For me, first and foremost, it was how candid and humble Natalia was about her work and all that she's trying to achieve. About the trials and tribulations of approaching such a huge mission, with a coalition of so many stakeholders, representing such a wide range of perspectives, all while trying to move at speed. There's something to learn there about giving credit where credit's due, about checking your ego at the door, and finding ways to work with others for the benefit of the many rather than the few.
Then, on top of that collaborative perspective, there's also this idea of abundance that seemed to be behind everything Natalia was saying. There’s work here for everyone. There is no shortage of jobs to be done. When you think in those terms, I guess it's easier to share, and to be collaborative. This isn't some little niche that's going to vanish or dry up. It's only going to get bigger. The more of us entering the game, the better.
Beyond that, a lot of what Natalia shared about narrative change really resonates with insights from previous guests, like Thomas Coombes about creating a vision of the future we can all work towards, and Kris De Meyer, about how humans learn from stories of action. If you want to dig deeper into this topic, I really recommend checking those two episodes out. But to hear this same thinking echoed in my conversation with Natalia really took me back to it and the need to focus on these two essential ideas.
So, that's what I'll be taking with me. But how about you? What did you hear? What were you be incorporating into your communications endeavours?
Thanks to Natalia Vega-Tracy for sharing her time and insight with the show, it was great. You can find links to some relevant resources in the show notes.
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