Sustainability Communications

Climate change and sustainability communicators have an urgent and hopeful story to tell. We’re here to help them tell it.

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 tell the sustainability story and change the narrative around urgent issues like climate change.

We work from the understanding that:

• Climate change is real, it’s happening now, it’s caused by human activity, and we can solve it.

• Industrialized countries have to cut their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions 80% by 2050, and we’re running out of time to get the job done.

• The solutions to climate change are in our hands. And affordable. Right now. We just (just?) need the political will to get started.

• We won’t reach the 80% 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 first steps governments 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 only be solved by smart dialogue and strong advocacy. That’s where we think online communities and networking can make an important difference. Join the conversation on our climate and energy blog, The Energy Mix (coming soon), to see what others are thinking, learning, and doing about the biggest challenge of our lifetimes.

Why the Energy Mix?

The Energy Mix is Smarter Shift’s online community on energy, climate change, and low-carbon energy futures.

Energy planners like to talk about the “energy mix” of fuel and electricity sources that bring us our heating, cooling, light, power, and mobility. On this site, The Energy Mix is about all the other decisions—in planning and development, investment and procurement, and in our day-to-day lives—that create demand for energy. We’re looking for partners and collaborators to put together the ideas, innovation, investment, public advocacy, and grassroot commitment that will:

• Highlight the powerful side benefits to businesses, non-profits, communities, and the wider society when we reduce our energy use

• Connect individual actions on energy and climate to research scenarios that point the way to an 80% emissions reduction by 2050.

We hope you’ll become an active participant in The Energy Mix! Subscribe to our blog. Follow our #EnergyMixLeads hashtag. Have a look at the research questions we’ve been thinking about, and let us know what you think. We can solve this very tough, challenging problem if we solve it together, and now’s the time to start building momentum.