Saving our planet is now a creative communications challenge – are you up for it?


On Tuesday 27th April THINKHOUSE hosted “DELAY IS THE NEW DENIAL: COMMUNICATING FOR PLANET EARTH” an event for anyone working in marketing and communications for brands and businesses. This presentation followed Thinkhouse’s Earth Day event which took place 4 days before our AAI toolkit webinar.

Hosted by THINKHOUSE’s cross-functional PLANET team and powered by insights from The Youth Lab, the event was designed to strengthen our industry’s role in restoring our earth. 

Pre Covid-19, we saw an understanding of the power of purpose-led approach to business strengthening – for example, in 2019 Unilever announced that its purpose-led, Sustainable Living Brands were growing 69% faster than the rest of the business and delivering 75% of the company’s growth. Sharing learnings from inspiring ‘PLANET’ marketing examples, we also outline the opportunities that brands have to grow in different ways into the future, with more purposeful strategies, as we emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic. 

The event aims to accelerate the change we want to see in our industry exploring the potential for brands and communication within the broader climate and sustainability context. Some “need to knows’ around sustainability communications and language are included as well as a view on the current brand landscape. Finally, the event aims to inspire and empower real action through the behaviours and actions of our industry.

Lastly, below are some additional resources to check out…


Register for Ecoffectiveness (April 28th at 1pm)

Discourses of Climate Delay Research

Change the Brief Toolkit

Words That Work Report

Better Business – B Corp book

The Outrage + Optimism podcast

Climate Allies podcast

Some other good starting points with Sustainability

Nice summary of the science

Speakers for this event include…

Claire Hyland, Head of The Youth Lab at THINKHOUSE said: “David Attenborough said ‘Saving our planet is now a communications challenge.’ We know this – and we have witnessed how, since the launch of our PLANET services over 2 years ago, brands and businesses are increasingly aligned on the need to achieve a net zero world as soon as possible. To do this, our industry must step up to tackle the problems of communications that are misaligned with a net zero world and/or not working within the Sustainable Development goals.  This means thinking differently about the work we create and how we measure success.”

Laura Costello, Senior Strategist, Purpose & Planet at THINKHOUSE said: “This event will serve as a temperature gauge of where we are now and where we’re heading. The picture is clear – there is a big gap between what businesses and brands are currently perceived to be doing in terms of acting on climate and what young people expect from them. With major initiatives such as The Great Reset by Purpose Disruptors and Thinkhouse’s own sell-out industry event in 2019 ‘World War Z, a Generation’s Battle to Fix the Climate Crisis,’ this event is part of our continued commitment to share the views of the next generation and accelerate an inspired and informed response.”

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