In our latest edition of Social’s Impact Chat, our director Luke Cross speaks to Rachael Orr, chief executive of Climate Outreach, the first British charity to exclusively focus on public engagement with climate change.
Rachael’s career spans several socially-driven organisations. She is currently serving on the board of the Refugee Council and was previously chief executive of Placeshapers, a membership body for community-focused housing associations. Rachael was also formerly head of UK programmes at Oxfam, non-executive director at Suffolk Housing and a campaigns manager at Shelter.
As Climate Outreach celebrates its 20th birthday, Rachael draws on ways the organisation has evolved its climate approach and ways in which other businesses and the newly elected government should follow suit.
Below are some of the key talking points from the conversation:
The climate story we need to tell
When founded, Climate Outreach originally focused on spreading awareness on the impact of climate change to the public. However, this has evolved to storytelling and public engagement.
Racheal highlights how Climate Outreach avoids doom-mongering climate storytelling and instead, celebrates the progress that is happening.
“Whilst some of the science about climate change is truly scary, that kind of communication does not motivate anybody to think or behave or feel differently, it just puts people off.”
Discussing the Britain Talks Climate report, Rachael explained how Climate Outreach took a more emotive approach to its research as it wanted to show how people from different communities can be a part of the climate conversation.
Becoming a leader in global climate change
Luke poses questions around the importance climate change in political debates and ways it could be raised up the agenda.
Rachael says that ‘climate change as a thing cannot be a voting issue’. Rather than viewing climate change as a separate issue, these discussions should spread across all sectors like housing, the green economy, and the use of renewable energy.
Like the competitiveness of the global economy, she suggests that leaders should see advancements in climate change as a way of gaining credibility as a leading nation on an international level.
Hope for the new government?
Rachael touches on the ambitious climate mandate of the newly elected government. Whilst the change of the narrative and energy is good, she acknowledges that there are significant challenges in the coming years.
When discussing climate change and migration, she notes that we must be cautious of MPs using fearmongering tactics. Instead, policymakers should think about Britain’s role in supporting countries in the global south who are more affected by climate change.
“The policies we need to do and the stories we need to tell are about our role in helping countries who are far, far worse affected by climate change than we are, and have done far, far less to cause it.”
Embracing imperfect environmentalism
When pointing out the paradox of businesses advocating for climate change yet being fully transparent, Rachael suggests we need to get better at having open conversations through celebrating imperfect environmentalism.
“Far too often when we think about what we’re doing on climate, it’s easy for people to pick holes in what we’re not doing”.
But she says businesses should be more open about their climate change shortcomings and have more faith that consumers will understand the nuance of not being perfect.
The importance of delivering retrofit solutions on a community level
To bring communities along with retrofitting solutions, Rachael highlights that housing associations and local authorities should see these changes as community engagement and not climate ones.
She notes that when people are asked about making their area better, the solutions are usually climate and retrofit improvements. For example, the desire for more green spaces and lower energy bills.
“Start from where people are and what they want”.