How media training for sustainability and climate organisations could help – A troubled COP 29
It’s been a difficult COP to say the least. As the leading provider of media training for climate change and sustainability organisations we’ve been watching closely. The fact that so many key players have not attended has not helped. It might also be tempting for climate change scientists and others to attack the Trump administration, but they will obviously have to work with the world’s largest economy.
Talking about the need for more sustainable methods of energy production and pointing out the risks of continued use of fossil fuels while avoiding the risk of attacking the Trump administration outright and alienating the US and the millions of Americans who voted for him will not be easy. Choosing the right arguments and right forms of words will be essential.
Media training courses for climate change scientists
In our media training courses for climate change scientists, asset managers concerned about greening their portfolios and for sustainability companies we look at issue management. Handling difficult questions from journalists and being able to offer a comment that sounds reasonable and authentic, without getting yourself into more trouble, requires careful thought. Delivering this message during a media interview is about preparation and rehearsal.
We support the PR companies and inhouse media relations teams of climate change organisations and those involved in sustainability. Sometimes they have had to make difficult decisions. Other times, it’s because they have been forced to introduce unpopular changes and reforms. Climate change scientists, sustainability managers and others might voluntarily enter a debate or issue a comment because they believe that it’s important for them to do so. Message development and testing is essential here.
We should add that given the inflammatory comments by President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan, COP29’s host country, crisis communications training might be also relevant. The world is an increasingly dangerous place and that’s why our crisis communications courses for those working in climate change are becoming more popular.
Crisis communications for green energy companies
We’ve recently carried out crisis communications for green energy companies, climate change campaigners and climate change scientists among others. The imaginary scenarios that we’ve tested include a data breach, questions about the integrity of key research and embarrassing comments by an employee or colleague. The COP media team would find these useful so that they can firefight quickly and effectively.
Spokespeople need to be ready to handle hostile questioning by the media. That’s why we put the participants on our crisis communications training courses through realistic role play media interviews. All of our trainers are working journalists (operating under non-disclosure agreements) and therefore they know exactly what questions to throw at our participants in the challenging but safe training environments that we create.
It’s also essential that communications professionals have statements ready to issue should something go wrong during these high profile events. That’s why, during our crisis communications workshop for climate change organisations we work closely with PR professionals and in-house communications teams to develop these statements. We also help spokespeople to deliver them confidently and authentically – again essential when dealing with difficult situations like this.
So, crises and firefighting aside, how can Climate change scientists and sustainability experts along with others in this field engage and persuade audiences? After all, COP 29, like any climate change event should also provide opportunities for developing positive messages and communicating them to target audiences.
Media training for climate change organisations
In our media training for climate change organisations, we focus on examples and storytelling. We can’t see CO2 emissions or global warming. But we can see and understand stories and case studies illustrating their effect on ordinary people like us. Similarly, green technology sounds good but what does it mean in practise? When we work with energy companies to help them to explain the sustainability initiatives that they are taking we get them to drill down to specifics.
We help them during our role play practise media interviews to point to specific pieces of technology or actions that they are taking. We worked recently, for example, with a home builder and encourage their spokespeople to talk about triple glazing windows and new developments in roof insulation. These are tangible examples that ordinary people can relate to. They can literally see what you mean when you talk about sustainability and challenging climate change.
Climate change and sustainability
Every organisation that we provide media training for has stories and examples. It’s just a case of identifying them, checking that they can be publicised and then helping spokespeople to talk about them in a way that is engaging and authentic. Climate change and sustainability are huge and important issues but breaking them down in a way that ordinary people can relate to is essential.
As our experienced journalists/ media trainers will tell you bad news sells but readers, viewers and listeners are also looking for something positive. Human beings are aware of risks and dangers, but we also want hope. Balancing the threats of climate change with opportunities for a better world makes for a good interview and will help climate change and sustainability spokespeople.
Media training workshops for climate change organisations
This brings us onto our final point. We always say in our media training workshops for climate change organisations that you need a call to action. If you’re speaking to a journalist, what is it that you want to achieve? Including a strong call to action, something that your readers, listeners or viewers can do to make the situation better is great for you as a spokesperson. But it also works well for us as journalists since we’re always thinking about the effect on our audience of our reports and interviews.
COP 29 Faces unique challenges but it has essential work to do. The coverage that it has had so far in the media shows the importance of good communications and effective media training for climate change and sustainability spokespeople.
Give people hope
Media Training courses for spokespeople in climate change organisations
At Communicate Media, all of our training programmes are created from scratch to meet the exact needs of each client. This means that we can develop a training course that will work for you. Come and talk to us. You can follow us on LinkedIn here.
