Making Climate-Related Content Everyone Wants to Share With Izzy Howden
This episode features a conversation with Izzy Howden, Senior Campaign Manager at Make My Money Matter, an organization working to transform the financial system. It was recorded in August 2024.
Over the past 3 years, Izzy has worked across all of Make My Money Matter’s public campaign activity, including the viral films, The Hidden Relationship, featuring Kit Harington and Rose Leslie, and Oblivian, featuring Olivia Coleman, which have racked up hundreds of millions of views, generated massive media coverage, and picked up a slew of awards.
She’s also directly engaged the financial sector to drive climate action, following Make My Money Matter’s mission to move money from the destructive, harmful investments of the past, into those that help build a future we can be proud of.
Before joining Make My Money Matter, Izzy developed strategic, creative campaigns for clients such as the Global Project for Education, the World Economic Forum, Peace One Day, and Footprint Coalition.
Amongst other things, Izzy and I discussed the task of making pensions and climate finance engaging for audiences, how working with celebrities can take things to the next level, and how embracing creativity, humour, and satire can give campaigns an edge.
Additional links:
Visit the Make My Money Matter website
Watch Oblivian with Olivia Coleman
Watch The Hidden Relationship with Kit Harington and Rose Leslie
Watch the “Saving Jane” deforestation animation
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 Izzy Howden, Senior Campaign Manager at Make My Money Matter, an organisation working to transform the financial system. It was recorded in August 2024.
Over the past three years, Izzy has worked across all of make my money matters public campaign activity, including the viral films, The Hidden Relationship, featuring Kit Harrington and Rose Leslie, and Oblivian, featuring Olivia Coleman, which have racked up hundreds of millions of views, generated massive media coverage, and picked up a slew of awards.
She's also directly engaged the financial sector to drive climate action following Make My Money Matter’s mission to move money from the destructive, harmful investments of the past into those that help build a future we can be proud of.
Before joining Make My Money Matter, Izzy developed strategic, creative campaigns for clients such as the Global Project for Education The World Economic Forum, Peace One Day, and Footprint Coalition.
Amongst other things, Izzy and I discussed the task of making pensions and climate finance engaging for audiences, how working with celebrities can take things to the next level, and how embracing creativity, humour, and satire can give campaigns an edge.
So, let's get on with it. This is Communicating Climate Change with Izzy Howden.
From your perspective, how can communication best contribute in humanity's response to the climate crisis?
Izzy: Big question. Great one to start with. I think really the role of communication for us, and me personally, is firstly around shifting cultural attitudes, so it's about creating a collective voice to demand change. Obviously, there's a role that individuals can play in this, but really what I think it's about is creating cultural shifts that mean there's a collective voice to pressure governments and corporations to take action. And effective communication is is such a clear way that we can do that.
And I think linked to that is really zooming out a bit into the system that we're up against, particularly around the media and how we can communicate on these issues, you know, we're trying to change companies that are causing the most damage and driving the climate crisis and, for the most part, particularly in the work that I do, they’re also profiting from that damage. So, we're really up against a system that is not in the interests of actually tackling the climate emergency, so using communication to actually cut through that system and yeah, mainstream this message in a sort of media landscape that really is not built for that - it's designed to maintain the current interests and those that are at the forefront of this climate emergency and actually how do we pierce through that a bit.
Dickon: For those who aren't aware of Make My Money Matter, could you give an introduction to the organisation and its work?
Izzy: Yeah, of course. So, we were founded in 2020. We're a non-profit campaign. We were co-founded by Richard Curtis, the film director/ activist, of Love Actually and Comic Relief. And really what we want to do is raise awareness and drive action around the power of our money, particularly the money in our pensions and the companies that we choose to bank with in driving, but also tackling the climate crisis.
For us, that really is around our pensions and our banks. So, who we choose to trust with our money in the UK, our big 5 high street banks, Barclays, HSBC, Santander, NatWest and Lloyds, who are currently funnelling billions upon billions of pounds into fossil fuels, and particularly new fossil fuels. And then also our pension providers who take our money, this is money belonging to us, and invest it in all sorts of ways. And currently the system is designed that they pump that money and make the most profit out of really, really harmful companies and industries. So, it's basically bringing this to light for individuals and organisations and then giving them the tools to tackle that if they're not happy with how that currently works.
And really one thing I'd mentioned for anyone listening, and I think at the crux of our campaign and why it's really resonated with people. It's just the impact that this money piece can have. You know, there's a lot of other things that people naturally think of and tend towards in terms of their own climate impact and money for a long time hasn't been seen as part of that toolkit. And our job and our aim is really to make it part of that. When we started, we wanted to really look at what is that impact. How do we know that this is going to have such a transformative change for individuals and companies and industries, really? And for greening your pension, so when an individual moves into the green fund that their pension provides, it reduces an individual's carbon footprint 21 times more than if they went veggie, gave up flying, and switched to renewable energy combined. So, just to kind of put that into perspective for people when they're thinking, “What on Earth does my pension have to do with the climate crisis?” It can have such a massive impact on an individual level. But then if you think about how you might scale that up into an organisation, it just really snowballs. So yeah, our job is to to get money on the map in terms of how people and businesses can impact the planet.
Dickon: Before we get into the campaigns, which are probably how most people will be familiar with Make My Money Matter, can you explain the importance of restructuring the financial system, particularly our pensions, and why this carries so much weight in the bigger picture?
Izzy: Yeah, definitely. And it's it's a really good question because a lot of people might have seen our campaign films or might hear of us because, you know, Richard was our co-founder and think, “Why are they banging on about pensions and climate change?” So, it's often an entry point we try and bring people into.
So, currently in the UK, our pension savings and this is money that belongs to savers across the UK, total over £3 trillion. So, it's an enormous kind of unimaginable pot of money really that belongs to people up and down the UK. And obviously this money is currently being saved. It comes out of your your paycheck. Your employer contributes to it, and that's saving for your future.
And there's this really horrible dark irony that how that money is being invested currently is actually jeopardising the future that we're all saving to retire into. And what I mean by that is billions of pounds of this pension pot in the UK is being invested in the companies and the industries that are at the forefront of the climate crisis. In particular, campaign looks at the impact on deforestation and fossil fuels, and we know that in the UK £300 billion, which again is just like such an enormous number, it's quite hard to conceive of. £300 billion is in companies linked to deforestation and what that means on an individual level is that for you or me, or anyone who has a pension in the UK, for every £10 that you put into your pension, £2 of that is linked to deforestation.
So, it's just this absolutely unimaginable scale that our money without us realising is driving one of the key contributors to the climate crisis and nature crisis. If deforestation was a country, it would be the third largest emisser in the world. That's without thinking about all of the impacts on people and livelihoods and nature that's happening globally.
So there's the impact on deforestation. There's also the link to fossil fuels. We conducted some research last year that looked at the scale of UK pensions exposure to investments in fossil fuels. And it's £88 billion. Again, just enormous numbers that are quite hard to grasp, to be honest. What that means for individuals is that £3000 in your pension pot is invested in fossil fuels. Huge amount of money for people, and I certainly don't want 3000 of my pounds invested in fossil fuel companies. You know, I'm campaigning against them and their role in the climate crisis, so we just want to bring this to light for people and I think what really resonates from our campaign is we paint this picture of all of the bad stuff that's happening. But actually there's a flip side to it and that's one of our key messages as well. All of this bad stuff is happening with our money. But the positive potential is just absolutely enormous.
We conducted some research recently that shows that a trillion pounds of UK pensions can be funnelled into climate solutions by 2035. A trillion pounds. You know, we see in the news, especially with the new government. It's like, “Where's money going to come from for the green transition?” We know where it can come from. We just need the right conditions to make that happen. It's about shifting how our money is invested and the mindset around it. Currently, it's really driven by short term profits without a consideration of what is the world will be retiring into. How are we going to exist in that world? And we want to make sure that in those investment decisions and how our money is invested, we bake in considerations of what the impact of those investments is now and in the future, which currently doesn't really happen.
Dickon: What led you to explore such creative and outside-the-box campaigns when seeking to raise awareness of this issue?
Izzy: Yeah, another great question. I think there's probably two main things really for us. So firstly, it's borne out of us being a different kind of climate finance campaign. So, there's a lot of just fantastic organisations, many of whom we work with and have worked with for years, doing research and policy, advocating for change from government. These slightly more technical think-tank-esque organisations. And then we came along and sort of wanted to add to that landscape, but do things in a slightly different way.
You know, we're backed by a lot of research and we have fantastic advocacy arm and that kind of stuff. But really we wanted to tackle the proposition of “How do we actually get individuals and organisations excited and engaged on pensions and banks?”, which isn't the easiest, particularly pensions. You know, you have a view in your mind of yourself in your 60s, 70s. You don't think about it now and I think it was a really interesting idea of how do we get 18 to 35 year olds, particularly as our main audience, how do you get them engaged? And that led us down the the path of being creative and and doing things differently to compliment and supplement some of the other more technical work that people have been doing in this sector for decades.
And then secondly, I think we quickly learnt what was working and what wasn't. And then we're trying variations of that out and amping those things up so that the power of humour and satire and creativity in a space that, you know, financial campaigning doesn't lend itself naturally to creativity, I wouldn't say. And kind of pulling these weird and wonderful ideas together, I think created something quite special. And then also just having the high profile spokespeople, so we learnt very quickly that having people you wouldn't typically associate with pensions or banks, or even climate, having them talk on this issue was not only engaging individuals, you know through social media or through our campaigning, but also it got the media interested. Which you know, we've spoken about already and it'll be a thread throughout this conversation, is “How do we elevate this issue and cut through to the mainstream in a landscape that's really, really hard to do that?”
Dickon: So starting with “The Hidden Relationship”, can you describe this video for listeners - and I'll obviously link to it in the show notes - give some idea of the story behind it and also maybe tell us about the impact that it had.
Izzy: Yeah, definitely. So we made this film with our long term creative partner's Mother, who are a creative agency in London. It was produced by Biscuit and directed by this fantastic director, Ben Strebel. So, definitely a kind of creative coalition I guess.
And the video is a bit of a play on the BBC TV show “Couples’ Therapy” where you get this amazing insight into real-life couples’ therapy sessions. And the reason we wanted to use that as a bit of a device is because we wanted to unearth one of the most damaging destructive relationships that people don't know about. And that's the relationship between our banks on the UK high street and fossil fuel companies. And it's really it's about showing that not only is this a really toxic, damaging relationship for people and planet, but it's also a bit obscure and a bit hidden. You know, you're not going on your bank's website and seeing them gloating about how many billions of dollars they've pumped into fossil fuels this year. What you will see is probably windmills and people at their local branch.
So, we wanted to kind of show this dichotomy a bit of what they say they do, the image that they portray to the public and to their customers, and then actually what's going on behind the scenes with the investment side of their business.
And then obviously, we were just tremendously lucky to have Kit Harrington and Rose Leslie star in it. Firstly they were just brilliant in bringing it to life. But the added dynamic of them having played very sort of famous couple in Game of Thrones and then also being a real life couple. It was just this amazing combination of circumstances that I think added a bit of a layer to it.
Really, the project was us kind of going to Mother and saying, “You know, we want to mainstream this issue that people don't really know about and feels a bit technical and and possibly a bit boring and stuffy, how do we show this in an exciting way that's that's going to excite people?” And particularly I think that there's the element of like, you feel like you're getting an insight into this secret, that again makes it something a bit exciting. You're adding a dynamic to what you're telling people. Rather than just saying, “By the way your bank pumps money into these companies”, it’s “Ooh! There's this thing that we're unearthing.” And it adds a bit of a story for people.
The the writing in the script was so brilliant because without throwing too much at you, they managed to hit the notes so brilliantly where you can see there's this tension between the couple and what's that about and then you start cottoning on. And I think having that like reveal moment, we just loved, you're sort of initially like “What? What am I watching?” And I don't think anyone's, unless they know our campaign, they're not going into it thinking this is going to be a film around climate finance. Then having that reveal and people are like, “Oh!”
And then it re-engages them for that last bit of the video and actually we had so many people sharing it saying, "Make sure you watch to the end,” because of the little, kind of secret additional thing that we put after the titles, and it's just nice to give people a bit of a journey and and different things that they can react and respond to within that kind of two minutes.
On impact as well, I think you were asking, it's a really interesting and one we’re constantly reviewing across the campaign, is making sure we funnel the views and the engagement and the press that we get - and I mean, this video has now been viewed tens of millions of times - we had global media coverage, hundreds of pieces, nominated for various awards and, crucially for us, created a bunch of bad PR for these banks that are, in a sense, a bit untouchable.
They have tens of thousands of people switching from them each year and millions of complaints from customers each year, so we have to leverage people power in a bit of a different way when we're campaigning against these banks. And for us, we've noticed that the bad PR and the kind of media storm that we can whip up around that is actually really impactful in driving them to see “Okay, this is an issue that is a risk to our reputation,” and kind of appealing to that more cynical commercial element of what they do.
So, there was that aspect, but for us it's about how do you funnel that back around into making sure that individuals and organisations are having impact and have action that they can take. If they've seen this video that they’ve been moved by it. How do we make sure they've got a journey they can go on?
So we had, you know, thousands of people contacting the Big 5 banks on the UK high street when we launched the film and subsequently also having businesses switch from these banks and saying, “Listen, it's just not good enough. I want a bank that I'm going to trust with my money, but I also trust not to wreck our planet and profit from that.”
So, it's a bit of a puzzle of making sure that we have this fantastic creative, but how is that actually driving action behind the scenes as well?
Dickon: Next up, it's Oblivian with Olivia Coleman. So again, could you give listeners an idea of the video, the story behind it, and paint a picture of what it achieved?
Izzy: In terms of the story behind it, this began with a piece of research that I mentioned earlier that we conducted that really we wanted to look at the scale of exposure and our pensions in the UK, how much of that is being invested in fossil fuel companies. And the report showed, as I mentioned, it's £88 billion of UK pensions disinvested in fossil fuel companies, that's £3000 per pension saver in the UK. So, a lot of money. And also most people are just not aware of this.
I've been in rooms with people who are engaged on climate and I'll ask them, you know, “Are any of you here aware that £3000 of your money is invested in fossil fuel companies?” And these are people who are campaigning on climate as well and they have no idea about it.
So, that was a really exciting brief, I think, “How do we communicate this with people in an interesting way that's going to resonate and get them engaged and want them to take action on it?” So, we worked with another one of our creative partners on this, a brilliant company called Lucky Generals. We did our first ever video with them and it's a similar premise to this one. We thought, “could we rework this, but focusing on fossil fuels and pensions?” And they went away and just wrote this absolutely amazing script and it was like, “OK, this is just brilliant.” They bought their partners on board, so this fantastic production company called Some Such, and then somehow managed to score Raine Allen Miller to direct it, who had recently at the time done Rye Lane and is now one of the UK's biggest emerging directors. So, we could not believe our luck. And this was before we'd even got Olivia Coleman!
Then yeah, she came on board and she's obviously like national treasure, Oscar winner. You're like, she's obviously going to be pretty good. And then you see it in action. I'm like, this is actually something that's very special and feels like a bit of magic.
In the video, she plays a fossil fuel CEO. She introduces herself as Oblivia Coalmine. And she's speaking directly to camera, thanking pension savers for pumping all of their hard earned money into her fossil fuel company that's still destroying the planet to rake in as much profit as they can. And you know she's wearing this amazing leather, PVC trench coat and it's a visual journey as well as kind of an emotional one. I still can't quite believe that we know we managed to like pull it off really. Because it was successful beyond what we could have imagined both in terms of, creatively how it's been received in that industry, you know we've won numerous awards, shortlisted for a Cannes Lion, we won the Green Arrow at the British Arrow Awards, like it's been really well received from a creative perspective.
But then also in terms of that impact piece that I was mentioning earlier, within 48 hours we'd had 30 million views. We'd had global media coverage. It was a scale that we could not have anticipated, really.
Funnelling that back through into how we drive action from the UK pensions industry was key. And, you know, on the day of launch we had multiple massive pension funds in the UK looking after hundreds of billions of pounds of savings contacting us saying, “OK, you know, we hear you, this is an issue that we need to tackle.” And since then, it's really been a tool that we can use to put that pressure on the industry to change.
And behind the scenes in how we advocate and engage with the industry, we're seeing slow progress, but we are seeing progress on the issue of how our pension funds support and invest our money in companies that are pumping new fossil fuels.
And for us, what we'll be really telling actually is, when we produce our next climate action report at the start of next year, which looks at the largest pension providers in the UK and how they perform on key climate metrics. And one of those is fossil fuels and how they engage with these fossil fuel companies. I think it should be really telling to see which of actually responded to this pressure and are taking it seriously and which actually aren't, and they're kind of maintaining the status quo.
Dickon: Yeah, I mean, for anyone who hasn't seen it. It's absolute insanity. So I will definitely link to that also in the show notes.
Izzy: I would recommend like close attention to her outfit, the boots she's wearing. It's just amazing. And also she was like such a dream to work with in so many senses. She was like “Oh yeah, let's just wear whatever, let's make it as big and bold as possible. And I feel so sorry for the fact she had to do repeated takes - listeners will see when they watch the film - but she's got a glass of oily champagne, shall we say. That, I think was made out of Bovril or some sort of horrible concoction to make it look very oily. And she was just, take after take, sipping on that. And I was like, “Fair play, Olivia, really, you know, committed to the cause!” She's just brilliant.
Dickon: How did you successfully bring celebrities on board for this campaign, and what was the most challenging aspect of doing so?
Izzy: So, obviously our co-founder being Richard Curtis, that brings a lovely bit of magic to it. But I think as well, having a compelling script or the creative idea is just so crucial. A lot of the time, the celebrities that we reach out to be involved in these things, it's probably their first time engaging on this issue. At least a lot of the times for us. So having a creative idea that connects with them and gets them excited is a really good sign actually, of it probably resonating more widely and having a bit of that magic.
In terms of a challenge, and I think this isn't particular to anyone we've worked directly with in the campaigns you've mentioned, but more broadly, I think there's a bit of a reticence for people to engage on this stuff because they're worried that they're going to be scrutinised or they'll be vilified for who they have banked within the past or, you know, the perfectionism argument.
And actually I think that's why our campaign is connected with people, because it's not us saying, “Any good person needs to be with this bank,” it's it's very much not that. It's, “This is the information about something you're probably not aware about and how it affects you and the people around you and the planet around you. And these are three things you can do about it.” So, it's about putting money as a tool for individual and organisational climate, alongside all of the other things that we traditionally think about. I believe it makes our proposition to celebrities and high profile people really exciting because it's open minded and it's about getting as many people involved as possible.
Dickon: Why do you think these campaigns were so successful, and what advice would you give to other communicators seeking to do something a bit different when it comes to their own outreach?
Izzy: Good question. Yeah, I think this sort of magic point of it is definitely important. It just snowballed and there was a bit of organic sort of luck to it. Beyond that, I think it's firstly having different way of communicating around climate. And I think we've seen a massive increase in campaigners doing this, using humour and satire so that people don't go into it expecting to have a message around climate, they just love the content for what it is because it’s a really strong story and creative, and then they're being told this message. I think is really key because it makes it something that people want to engage with. They want to share. No one wants to share a 30 page report about how UK pensions invest in fossil fuels. It's like making something that people want to share regardless of what that message is.
I also think having the celebrity spokespeople is massive. Linking back to the things we've spoken about with the media, it's “How do we get cut-through nowadays?” There's so much else you're competing with and having a celebrity spokesperson really helps with that.
Again, not to labour the point too much, but it's then, “How do you make sure it's not just a film with Olivia Coleman? How does it link back to actual impact in driving change?” This is also why our campaign has been more broadly successful, and particularly these these kind of creative moments is because of our position around the impact you can have is kind of unparalleled really.
As an individual, you can green your money, and that's hugely important, but then you can go to your organisation. If you work in a business who has a pension that's billions of pounds, you have the opportunity to actually impact that and, you know, get together with colleagues and say, “We want our default to be the green option.” And then suddenly, it’s the snowball of like, you were first greening your bank and moving to a fossil free bank, and then suddenly you've impacted a whole organisation. So I think that really appeals to people.
Money is such a personal thing for people and to connect to them on that level, like we're all have bank accounts. Most of us have pensions. It's something that kind of resonates across the board.
Finally, our campaign as a whole has really connected with people because they see it as a form of activism that they can engage with. You know, for the most part, the climate activism that gets coverage and that we see in the press and on the news, a lot of people don't see themselves represented in that activism but do you want to do more than they're already doing. But don’t quite know what to do or how to do it. And I think we offer people steps that they can take that doesn't mean they're, you know, having to go out on marches or take more drastic action or whatever it is. It's it's something they can do. And they feel comfortable doing it.
So, we're in this kind of spectrum of climate activism, I think we take up quite a nice space in the middle of saying this is actually really important and has impact, but it appeals to a mass audience.
It's not saying, “You have to do this in a certain way,” and it's also not us saying “Don't do anything else,” because some of our most engaged people that we've worked with are climate activists who are out on the streets doing other things or climate lawyers or people who've been lifelong vegans and money wasn't a part of the picture that they saw. And we're saying, “Oh, no, by the way, it is. And it's a really important part.” And then they take that action as well. So, it's just offering it to people as another part of the puzzle that is right for them and for some people, it will be some people it won't be. But I think it's it's a really important addition to thousands of ways, really, you can actually take climate action.
Dickon: What were the most surprising things that came about from working on these campaigns? What challenges did you encounter, and what did you take forward to help in future endeavours?
Izzy: Yeah, I mean, I've touched on just the sort of surprise and luck and magic of the Olivia film. Really, I think that was just a perfect combination of elements that meant it was so far beyond what we'd anticipated being. And linked to that actually is, one of the loveliest surprises - and we have this in all of the projects we work with, I think - from small things to, you know, big Olivia Coleman-esque moments, is just how enthusiastic and excited people are to work on it.
We're a tiny campaign. We're getting these projects off the ground with very tiny budgets, and it couldn't happen without people wanting to be part of it and giving up their time, and we just had that time and time again where people want to be involved and it really kind of, for me reaffirms that our message is strong, our theory of change is right.
People want to be involved in this because we're doing things slightly differently to how they've been done before. I remember when the Olivia shoot someone who was meant to be on her day off and came in because she was just like, “I really have to work on this,” it's such a brilliant project. And just working with people like that is always a nice surprise and nice to be reminded that actually what we're doing resonates with people.
In terms of challenges, I think it's just the constant battle to keep our message, and more broadly, the climate message, at the forefront of people's minds and the media cycle. You know, we're up against an awful new cycle, to be honest, a lot of the time. Some horrendous news stories everyday really, every week. And then also really pivotal things that people want to engage with, you know, biggest election year in history, things that have really important to people and understandable that that’s what needs to be engaged with. But it's also thinking, “Well, you know, every story should be a climate story. But it's not.” And how do we make sure that we keep it up and at the forefront for people I think is a really huge challenge.
Because it's also about, ”How do you tell it differently?” Because people need to hear our message 10 times before they're they're going to do something. So, how do you keep it different? Keep it engaging for people? I think is a real challenge.
And in terms of like taking forward to to future projects - and I think this for me on a personal level as well, and I've been so lucky to work in this campaign where this is baked into how we operate across the board - but it's like how do you feed things back into what's going to drive change? Like what is that theory of change that makes sure you don't just have an amazing piece of content that exists in isolation? Where does it go and what do you do with the the impact of that? Because as fun as it would be to make 10 Oblivia Coalmine films, how we're making sure that this is shifting something? You know the cultural attitude shift that we spoke about earlier is really key, but then it's actually also making sure you've explored all avenues of how you leverage something brilliant to make sure that you're actually driving impact. I think that's for me personally and our campaign is is such a key intrinsic part of what we do.
Dickon: And then I guess relatedly, what have you got in the pipeline? What is up next for Make My Money Matter?
Izzy: Yeah. So we've got some really exciting things coming up this year. We recently launched a beautiful animated film with a few partners of ours to highlight their links between UK pensions and deforestation. So we've got a few more moments to really build on that and pressure the industry because progress on that has been really, really slow.
One area that we're actually working more on as well is bank sponsorships. So, we had quite a high profile campaign the past couple of years on Barclays sponsorship of Wimbledon. You know, Barclays is Europe's worst fossil fuel financer and they're sponsoring the beloved Wimbledon and using that brand and their high profile nature of the tournament to essentially greenwash and reputation-wash themselves. And Wimbledon, unfortunately, have absolutely lapped it up and have stood by them. Quite passionately this year actually. So, looking at how we raise the profile of how these fossil fuel banks are using partnerships and celebrity voices and faces to distract from the role that they're playing in driving and profiting from the climate crisis.
So, one campaign that we've launched earlier this year is around Ant and Dec and Santander. You know, they have a long standing partnership where Ant and Dec are the faces of this bank. We’re basically saying “Ant and Dec, please stop this,” because Ant and Dec are well loved. They’re on our TV's a lot and Santander know this and that's what they want you to think about when you think of Santander and actually what we want people to think about is that they're funnelling 10s of billions of dollars into fossil fuel companies. Also, they're playing a pivotal role in backing companies that are destroying the Amazon. For us, it's unearthing the reality behind that reputation and trying to end the sponsorships that enable them to distract from that as well.
And then finally, people should be aware that we're lauching our latest climate action report in February, so this again I mentioned it earlier, but it's our ranking of the top UK pension providers for more climate action. And it's just such a useful tool because the question we get asked most is, “Who's good, who's bad? “And spoiler alert: No one's good enough, but there are some that are better than others. And I think we've just learned it's such a valuable tool for people to be able to have. So, we did it for the first time last year and we'll be updating it and launching at the start of next year. So, keep an eye out for that.
Dickon: There's definitely an irony there about Ant and Dec and the jungle.
Izzy: Yeah, our tagline is “We’re living through a climate crisis, get us out of here!”
Dickon: Nice.
Izzy: You've seen with I'm A Celebrity, they had to move locations. You see them contend with really awful weather. You know, the heat or rain storms, and you're like, “Guys, let's connect the dots here. This is directly caused by the climate crisis. And then the people fronting that show are fronting this bank.” And you know, we're not putting the blame on Ant and Dec, we love Ant and Dec, a lot of people do. It's just that there's probably better ways they can lend their voice and their faces than to one of the worst fossil fuel banks, and actually Santander in particular. Over the past year is the only one of the Big 5 banks in the UK to increase their financing for new fossil fuels. Our campaign just wants to make Ant and Dec aware of this and say, “Maybe you guys could find a better partnership than with this evil bank.”
Dickon: What's the single most important aspect of communication that we should be paying attention to in our communication endeavours?
Izzy: For me, the most important aspect is, “What do you want to achieve?” because that's going to tell you how to communicate most effectively, I think we’ve learnt that once you know exactly what you want to get out of it, you can then differentiate your tone. You can experiment, you can do different things and utilise different tools, pull different levers to get to that. You know, if you want to move people emotionally, do it in this way. If you want to shock people, use a shocking fact or if you want to use humour to entice people and then hit them with something. I think it all comes back round for me to to what you actually want to achieve through what you're trying to say.
Dickon: On the flip side, what's the biggest mistake that you see communicators make when attempting to engage the public on climate change issues?
Izzy: Again, a great and tricky question. One of the mistakes that I see quite often is just being too technical, and obviously this depends on the audience. But when I'm thinking about the public or thinking about engaging organisations business. If it's too technical, it really risks alienating people and not getting to the heart of what's actually going to connect with them that’ll then get them to take action or engage with your campaign.
The caveats of this is accuracy is so important. For our campaign, this really kind of bears this out because we have a lot of research and evidence behind what we then go out with publicly, but it's then about communicating it in an exciting way and more often than not, you just need to completely remove the technical jargon. Even phrases like net zero, 1.5 it's all just a bit alienating for people, so that would be my advice is, strip out the technicality and as long as you know that you've got it backed up by kind of rigorous evidence, then you're fine. But it's it's about how you're actually going to connect with people and not just hitting them over the head with loads of technical jargon.
Dickon: It was really fun talking to Izzy, but what in particular stuck with you from our conversation? What will you take from it and apply to your own work?
For me, it was the idea of making content people want to share no matter what it's about. Often it still feels as though campaigns start with their message, their 'cause their concern, and find every which way possible to expose it to their audience, whether it resonates with that audience or not.
Whereas starting at the other end, with the audience, knowing what you want to achieve, but then shaping the message to fit that audience's particular needs, wants interests, for example, by making a weird, wonderful, and highly shareable video that just happens to be about climate finance. Well, that seems like a much smoother and more satisfying path. Holding an audience's nose and forcing the content down their throats isn't fun for anyone. We've got to make content that's delicious. That's so good, they can't help but keep coming back for more.
Then there's the sheer number of collaborative partners involved in the activities that Izzy was describing. These incredible campaigns are emerging from coalitions of researchers, campaigners, marketers, film makers, writers, actors and more. It just goes to show how much it pays off to involve the creative industries in this kind of outreach. So that's what I'll be taking with me. But how about you? What did you hear? What will you be incorporating into your communications endeavours?
Thanks to Izzy Howden for sharing her time and insight with the show, it was great. You can find links to some relevant resources in the show notes. Thanks also to you for listening to Communicating Climate Change. If you enjoyed this episode, why not leave it a rating or review? Your feedback not only helps to shine a light on the guests and themes that resonate with you the most, but also boosts visibility, meaning the series reaches more people, expanding the community and driving the conversation forward.
You can find more episodes wherever you get your podcasts or by subscribing so you never miss out. You can find Communicating Climate Change on LinkedIn too, and if you think the series would be of interest to friends or colleagues, why not point them in the right direction. Remember, each and every episode attempts to add to our toolkits to help us develop the fun and the originality that we'll need for this protracted task. So. Be sure to stay tuned for more for anything else, just head over to communicatingclimatechange.com until next time. Take care.
