The green agenda

So we’ve had Halloween and Bonfire Night, and now we’re in the run up to Christmas. My first Christmas drinks, with Women in PR, are on 17 November and the school Christmas fair is coming up on 20 November. Personally, I’m looking forward to the end of the year when I can take stock and take some time off to eat, walk, watch telly and chill.

Because of COP26, many of us in comms have been preoccupied with the environment and “messaging” around that. I put messaging in inverted commas because, really, we should all be concerned with actions, not words, but actions that we can take to mitigate the climate emergency.

From my experience, organisations may have an environment policy, but those organisations are typically led by people my age (50) or older, who don’t make decisions with the environment top of mind. They make decisions on the basis of cost, expediency and various other objectives that sit within the organisation’s overall strategy. They might make decisions for artistic reasons, in the arts, or because certain stakeholders expect certain things of them, in the corporate world.

When the chips are down, organisations often fall back into bad habits – printing more bits of paper with a cost-effective supplier in a quick turnaround that doesn’t take account of the supplier’s green credentials. Or encouraging people to jump in their cars or on a plane to get somewhere to meet some other people, without factoring in the time, expense and, let’s face it, sometimes the inconvenience of travelling in another way or of not travelling at all.

I’m not perfectly green myself, but I dislike hypocrisy and I don’t claim to be an eco-warrior in the first place. I do make decisions based on cost and expediency. I’m also deeply cynical, after 29 years in journalism, comms and PR. So it will take a lot to persuade me that an organisation is truly green when it claims to be. I’ll believe it when I see an organisation actually making decisions first and foremost on the basis of the environmental impact they will have, while championing a green agenda. Many claim to do so, especially with COP26 setting the agenda, but look hard and decide what their real motivations are. That’s all I’m saying.

Recent work

At the end of October, I helped Broadcast magazine to long list entries to its annual awards scheme. This involved watching more than 39 hours of TV, a lot of if it fantastic, some of it so so. Spoiler alert: I didn’t watch every 60 to 90-minute programme all the way through. But I did give each entry enough attention to work out what I thought, and the industry is still making some really cracking TV on important topics from, of course, Covid through to racial justice and politics.

Also at the end of last month, I delivered some training in the basics of PR to some people who really valued seeing what PR can do for their profile and their businesses. It was very enjoyable and I’ll aim to do more in future.

I’ve continued to try to help clients with ad hoc PR requests while life with my regular client, Activate Performing Arts, is quieter now the arts festival is over. We’re working on comms priorities as the organisation gears up to re-apply for the Arts Council’s National Portfolio Organisation funding next year and keeping up to date with regular newsletters, social media and website.

In other news

The Guardian reported that the London Stock Exchange was preparing to list its first company with an all-female board.

I heard on the radio while I was driving to my running club (yes, I get the contradiction) that a John Lewis ad for home insurance had been withdrawn because it showed a boy in a dress ruining his parents’ house – but the insurance only covers accidental and not deliberate damage. The story made me laugh out loud. I’ve since read on the Guardian website that the ad was ‘controversial’ because of the wilful vandalism / free-spirited self-expression that it showed and, presumably, although this wasn’t stated, because it showed a boy in a dress with make up on. Oh, please.

I loved Lego’s 10 step guide to policy makers on creating a better world, timed to coincide with COP26.

And good news for commercially funded media as forecasters predict a bumper spend by advertisers around Christmas.

I’ll gloss over Facebook’s rebranding of its parent company as Meta.

As you can tell, I get my daily news from the Guardian, but occasionally I pick up something useful from other newsletters. This caught my eye, from an Audience Agency newsletter, about tone of voice and the differences between voice (brand personality and relatively static) and tone which can and should shift, depending on who you’re communicating with and the context.

That’s it for another month. Just one more post and then it’s Christmas and curtains to 2021. It’s been a pretty good year so far.