Communications & Messaging
Communications and Messaging
Some members of the Smarter Shift team specialized in clean energy and other sustainability messaging long before the company began in 1984. We’re part of the conversation about how to change the narrative around climate change and the low-carbon transition.
We start from the understanding that:
- Climate change is real, it’s happening now, it’s accelerating, it’s caused by human activity, and we can solve it.
- The world economy must eliminate all greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by mid-century. And it’s more doable than ever before.
- We’ve known for years that the solutions to climate change are in our hands. And affordable. Right now. We just need the political will to get started.
- We won’t reach the full decarbonization target without fundamentally changing the way we use and think about energy. At the same time, grand scenarios that point to large GHG reductions through 2050 won’t get off the ground without connecting back to the steps governments and businesses can take today, and the changes citizens can make where we live, work, learn, and play.
All of which makes climate change a complex, urgent problem that will be solved by smart dialogue and strong advocacy. That’s where we think online communities and networking can make an important difference.
Research and Analysis
Our climate and energy team looks at elements of a deep decarbonization strategy to deliver the GHG reductions we need by mid-century. Much of that activity takes place outside the energy sector, where demand for fuel and electricity actually forms.
Here are some of the conversations we’ve been following lately:
- The proven need to keep the vast majority of known fossil fuel resources in the ground to meet the right decarbonization target
- The global drive to eliminate fossil fuel subsidies, overlapping with the need and opportunity to invest in low-carbon alternatives
- The massive potential to build on the green energy job growth we’ve already seen, and to connect those jobs to people whose livelihoods are at risk as the fossil economy implodes
- New, more effective strategies to cut greenhouse gas emissions in passenger air travel and air freight
- Innovative strategies to finance energy-efficient renovations
- Connections and synergies between the energy consumed by water utilities and the water demand created by unconventional fossil fuel development
- Options for reducing energy use in food production, transport, and consumption
- New investment risks and community needs facing philanthropies in an era of climate impacts
- The lead role for cities in using energy more efficiently and shifting to low-carbon, renewable supplies
- Transition scenarios for federal, provincial, state, and local governments that envision a low-carbon future, then backcast to the first steps in the right direction
- Engagement and dialogue strategies for connecting climate and energy research with “unusual suspects” outside the energy sector.
Visit our content curation site, The Energy Mix, to see what others are thinking, learning, and doing about the biggest challenge of our lifetimes.
