Climate Outreach is dedicated to improving climate communication and public engagement. The UK-based charity, formed of social scientists and expert communicators, partners with environmental movements, governments, and community groups globally to help them communicate effectively about climate change. Since 2004, their work is helping to shift climate communications from a story about science to a story about people. The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation has supported Climate Outreach as a ‘backbone’ partner in our sustainability work over the last five years.

The Foundation supports a range of innovative, evidence-based approaches to public engagement that ensure that climate action is rooted in broad-based, cross-societal support – a priority for the Foundation’s Climate and Ocean programme. Climate Outreach’s work is contributing towards a more engaged and informed public, in the UK and beyond – a critical factor in driving the societal changes needed to address climate change. Our partnership also encourages sharing of best practice internationally, and together we have facilitated learning among practitioners working in the climate, ocean and civil society sectors across the UK and Portugal.

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Supported Work

The Foundation is providing £130,000 in core funding for 2024-2025 to help Climate Outreach engage policymakers, business leaders, and civil society in the design and implementation of evidence-based climate communication strategies. A portion of this grant will be used to provide climate communications training for the cohort of 11 organisations and municipalities in Portugal supported by the Foundation as part of our Climate Participation Initiative.

Through these efforts, the Foundation aims to help shift the broader public narrative on climate to one that recognises people as part of the solution.

Core and project funding provided by the Foundation between 2021-2024 helped Climate Outreach to achieve significant outcomes across several international projects. These include:

Localised Climate Communications Toolkits: Climate Outreach replicated its highly successful ‘Britain Talks Climate’ digital toolkit for another high-emitting nation – Germany – categorising society by six segments and identifying how they response to certain climate messages.  Climate Outreach’s toolkits provide civil society organisations with evidence-based insights and practical strategies for reaching audiences that are not yet part of the climate conversation, aiming to build a broad social mandate for climate action.

Climate Visuals: This open-access photography library by Climate Outreach offers diverse imagery that is proven to be effective at engaging people on the topic of climate. Images are selected based on seven key principles that were developed and tested by the team’s social scientists and communicators. The Climate Visuals library features over 1,500 images and is used by over 10,000 environmental practitioners, journalists, educators and businesses across the globe. The Foundation later funded the development of the Ocean Visuals image bank, in partnership with Communications INC., to address the need for more impactful, diverse and accessible ocean-climate imagery. This initiative enhances public engagement on ocean issues and complements our work on Effective Ocean-Climate Communications.

Climate Engagement Lab: The Lab helps civil society organisations in the UK broaden their engagement of different audiences, particularly those not typically reached by NGO campaigns. By producing research and guides and convening the sector, the Lab brings campaigners and advocacy experts together to strategically reach new people in effective ways.

Climate Engagement Initiative: In 2021, Climate Outreach established an international alliance to work with national governments and local entities in countries including Fiji, Liberia and Scotland to help them engage their citizens on climate change. This included developing strategies that respond to and resonate with people’s beliefs and lived experiences.

Public engagement in Egypt at COP27: In partnership with an Egyptian organisation, Greenish, Climate Outreach helped local civil society organisations to engage the public on climate change at COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh. Together they produced a Public Engagement Lab that enabled 13 civil society organisations to take climate action within their local communities and contributed to ensuring that climate activism in Egypt is more inclusive of civil society voices and perspectives.

Public Engagement in the UK at COP26: The Foundation provided Climate Outreach with a grant of £50,000 to promote public engagement at COP26 in Glasgow – a key moment to raise awareness and encourage adoption of public engagement best practice by UK policymakers, media and environmental groups. The funding supported Climate Outreach to deliver a panel event on public engagement in the main arena of COP26 and an exhibition of Climate Visuals photography. Climate Outreach participated in a range of events focused on public engagement across the conference, working with activists and young people to ministers and business leaders.