Net Zero Festival: Sustainability and story-telling - how to engage your audience

BusinessGreen staff
clock • 1 min read

VIDEO: Lucy Siegle chats to leading green communications and marketing experts Richard Smith from the BBC, tve's Nicole Itano, and Peter Browning of Browning Environmental Communications

The net zero transition can seem daunting to some and exciting to others, but to many it is mindbogglingly abstract or complicatedly all-encompassing.

However, in order to drive a rapid, far-reaching and fair decarbonisation of the economy over the coming decades, citizens, workers, consumers and communities all have crucial roles to play. Helping the wider public to understand why combatting climate change is important, how to do it, and teh changes it may bring to their lives can is therefore critical in order to catalyse action and support towards the net zero transition. 

To explore the best means of doing so, journalist and broadcaster Lucy Siegle spoke to several leading communications and marketing experts involved in sustainability, including BBC head of sustainability Richard Smith; former WWF-UK director of media and content Nicole Itano, who is now executive director at non-profit television for the environment; and Peter Browning, CEO of Browning Environmental Communications.

The full discussion, which took place at BusinessGreen's recent Net Zero Festival, is available to watch above. 

All of the panel debates, keynote speeches, and presentations from the world's first Net Zero Festival - which took place over three days from 30 September featuring hundreds of top speakers from business, politics and academia - are now available to watch again on demand through the Net Zero Festival website.

More on Marketing

Overcoming the 'curiosity-scepticism' gap: What's the most effective way to advertise meat-alternative products?

Overcoming the 'curiosity-scepticism' gap: What's the most effective way to advertise meat-alternative products?

As cultivated meat edges closer to commercial reality two new reports examine how to best attract new consumers to sustainable alternatives to chicken, beef, pork and lamb

clock 30 July 2025 • 7 min read
Zoe Ruthven: 'Sustainability isn't about all of us doing everything perfectly'

Zoe Ruthven: 'Sustainability isn't about all of us doing everything perfectly'

Triodos Bank UK's director of marketing and communications discusses her journey from feeling her background wasn't 'green' enough to working at the forefront of sustainable finance

Stuart Stone
clock 29 July 2025 • 7 min read
'Science with a soul': Plastic pollution, Wilson the volleyball, and the dramatisation of 450 years of ocean data

'Science with a soul': Plastic pollution, Wilson the volleyball, and the dramatisation of 450 years of ocean data

Nicholas Bergantin, co-chief creative officer at Sao Paolo-based creative agency Africa, explains how Tom Hanks' famous volleyball came to front an ocean-waste awareness campaign

Stuart Stone
clock 23 July 2025 • 9 min read