ClimateWorks

Client: The British High Commission + Climate Works Australia

Results:

Drew 1026 viewers over three-episodes

Attracted representatives from key government & industry roles

Secured hosts who are leading the climate change conversation

Scope of work:

Production / editorial / research /copywriting / scripting / briefs / content creation / coaching / event management / event planning / talent scouting / live production / strategic advice / project management

Format: Television-style interview-based webinar series

Episodes: Three-part online event series

Industry: Government, Education, Governance, Industry, Sustainability, Climate Research

For this climate action project, we created the entertaining and highly informative webinar series, ‘Building Our Future’. This series featured climate change experts across multiple time-zones. Our goal was to familiarise Australian governments, businesses and organisations with the UK’s COP26 campaigns – and bring new ambition to achieving net zero emissions by mid-century.

The UK are hosts of the 26^th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow, taking place from 1-12 November 2021. This climate summit holds governments to account for their climate pledges – 120 have already committed to becoming carbon neutral by 2050. As COP26 President, the UK campaigns on five priority areas: energy transition, transport, nature-based solutions, adaptation and resilience, and finance.

Australia is a priority country for the UK’s COP26 engagements. However, Australia poses a challenge. In the 2020 Climate Change Performance Index, it rated lowest across 57 countries. Similarly, in the 2020 UN Sustainable Development Report, Australia ranked second-worst on climate action out of 177 countries.

The British High Commission in partnership with ClimateWorks Australia set out to create and grow relationships with key players that have influence on climate action across Australia. They wanted to galvanise action from the whole economy – including all levels of government, industry, and communities.

To inspire climate action ahead of COP26 within Australia, Written & Recorded created a television-style three-part interview-based webinar series. To elevate this series from your stock-standard webinar, we drew on our expertise in production values and editorial storytelling.

We worked across multiple time zones to secure some of the world’s biggest climate change experts like UN High Level Climate Action Champion, Nigel Topping. We also ensured participation from key industry players, such as BHP’s Vice President, Sustainability and Climate Change, Dr. Fiona Wild. Then we cherry-picked exceptional hosts for each online event, such as award-winning science journalist, Tanya Ha. We actively sought-out knowledgeable and charismatic hosts who could facilitate these conversations by making the complex subject-matter simple.

To meet each deadline and reach key milestones, we strategically planned ahead and analysed risks every step of the way. Each series was researched heavily and scripted with the core audience in mind which included: industry, cities, state and national governments, universities, researchers, investors, subnational governments, businesses and companies.

Debriefing after each episode, we brought the UK’s key message to life – which was to accelerate action towards the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

We briefed and coached the hosts as well as the guests ahead of each webinar. Our focus was on the editorial strength of the series. In collaboration with the ClimateWorks Australia team we also ran ‘meet-and-greet’ sessions to build rapport with panellists and to iron-out any technical concerns that ClimateWorks Australia anticipated.

Unlike standard webinars, we also live-produced each webinar. This meant we communicated with the hosts via an improvised autocue that was not visible to the audience. This meant we could be the host’s second brain, keep them running to time and provide the host with moderated audience questions. We also worked to support the technical abilities of each host, altering our approach to match their preferred line of communication. This included using Google docs, Slack, and WhatsApp.

In addition, we worked closely with the ClimateWorks Australia team to collate and curate the wording for marketing collateral across EDM’s, social media and websites.

Each webinar series ran for an hour in duration and episodes included:

Episode 1 – Clean technology: Energy and industry transitions

This webinar looked at how clean technology can boost the vitality of the economy, radically reshaping the global energy system and the need to accelerate and harness all opportunities.

Episode 2 – The Business of Net Zero

This webinar looked at where climate ambition is globally, which countries and companies are leading the way, and how others can catch up.

Episode 3 – Sustainable Finance: Pathways, policy and trends

This webinar looked at the importance of sustainable finance and pathways to a robust and competitive finance sector in Australia.

Written & Recorded were inspired by the UK’s call to arms to work together to protect our planet and people – and to build a more resilient future for us all.

Under tight deadlines we delivered a persuasive, entertaining, and educational webinar series.

Across the three webinars we attracted over 1026 viewers, with additional catch-up viewers after the live webinars.

By creating a strong narrative arc in each series, we attracted representatives from key industries and government. Some notable names include:

• Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia
• AESOP
• ARENA
• Australian Ethical Super
• BlueScope
• Bunnings Group
• Bush Heritage Australia
• Business Council for Sustainable Development Australia
• Commonwealth Bank Australia
• Deloitte
• DELWP
• Embassy of Belgium
• Embassy of Italy
• Ernst & Young
• EY Global
• James Cook University
• JBWere
• Lendlease
• Level crossings Victoria
• Melbourne Water
• New Zealand Green Investment Finance
• NZ High Commission
• Origin Energy
• PwC
• Schneider Electric
• Shell International Trading & Shipping Co.
• Suncorp
• The Myer Foundation
• Transurban
• Wesfarmers Ltd
• Woodside Energy Limited