Actions Guide
Advocacy
Step 2. Advocacy
Explore opportunities to collaborate with relevant organisations to raise public awareness and support community efforts to address climate change mitigation and to help build greater climate change resilience among vulnerable groups.
It is vital that companies participate in initiatives outside of their own business. This means joining forces with others in the public, private and academic sectors to create the critical mass needed for wide-scale change. Get involved by supporting research and community education programmes and by advocating for policies and regulatory frameworks that can bring about society wide systemic change.
Suggested Advocacy Actions
Choose an advocacy project that suits your company’s size and capacity to properly follow through on its execution. Simple can be best to begin with. It can be as simple as using your social media channels to amplify a sustainable message or as ambitious as directly or indirectly participating in local community or international sustainability projects.
Useful Tips
Identify your climate advocacy project: Climate action is a broad challenge so, in order to have a meaningful effect, it is important to narrow the focus of your advocacy on a specific climate advocacy project.
Collaborate with like-minded people or organisations: Your advocacy can be more effective when done in co-operation with other like-minded businesses or with a specialist sustainability organisation. Either join an existing group or reach out and create your own coalition of businesses.
Define Your Audience: When building a communication strategy around your chosen project, start by identifying what audience you’re trying to reach and influence.
Example Advocacy Project Types
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Use your social media, web and marketing assets to communicate a climate action message or promote the work of specific organisations, individuals or projects.
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Contribute time or funding to local primary/junior schools, secondary/high schools or universities to help them organise awareness days, education initiatives or formal courses to empower the next generation to build a more sustainable future.
Partner with an academic institution to provide funding and/or PR support for their academic research into measures to combat rising greenhouse gas emissions and to support their advocacy initiatives.
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Get involved either directly or indirectly in projects such as:
Improving the welfare of communities.
Planting new or saving existing trees and boglands.
Conserving or restoring land and marine ecosystems.
Raising funds to install solar PV on community centres or schools.
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By highlighting the good work of other institutions and enterprises, you can help move the wider business community towards choosing more ethical, carbon neutral investment, banking and supplier options. Examples include:
Financial: Ensuring that your corporate investments and your financial institutions actively support carbon emissions reducing enterprises.
Supply Chain: Purchasing products and services from companies that actively contribute to environment and community improvement projects.
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Partner Network Directory candidates that may be helpful implementing these suggested actions.
