HOW LIVE EXPERIENCES CAN HELP IN THE FIGHT AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE

According to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), there’s only a certain amount of global warming our earth can take before the damage is irreversible. The same report warned that we only have until 2030 to prevent these permanent impacts of climate change. However since then, our greenhouse gas emissions have not been significantly reduced.

While there are plenty of future goals being set by governments and businesses, our climate isn’t deteriorating in ten year increments – change has to happen today. That’s why we wanted to take a look at the work we do and how it can help negate the impacts of climate change.

It’s official: we’re currently in the midst of a global food crisis. We waste 1.3 billion tonnes of food a year globally. That’s 20 million slices of bread, 5.2 million glasses of milk, 2.2 million slices of ham, the list goes on. 

Although the climate movement is gaining traction, it’s simply not happening fast enough. The average family in the UK throws away £700 worth of food a year, putting a financial value on something that has such enormous environmental impact. It’s also something that every single individual could actively try to reduce, through food composting and using food waste bins, and also by budgeting and planning grocery shops in advance. Another solution is to hold businesses accountable, especially when the food waste they create isn’t properly disposed of or donated to a good cause.

At Marble we’re particularly passionate about reforestation and the positive impact planting trees can have on our planet. Read our CTO Robbie Parry’s latest interview talking about the educational, immersive projects we’re pioneering that have reforestation at its heart. 

Deforestation wreaks absolute havoc on our global ecosystems. It’s responsible for three billion tons of CO2 emissions worldwide. This amount of carbon makes up approximately 10% of the entire planet’s heat-trapping emissions and is equivalent to the annual emissions of around 600 million cars. A key culprit of deforestation is soy, a crop that is most commonly used as animal feed – humans usually only consume it indirectly through meat and dairy products.

One simple solution to this is to reduce meat and dairy consumption, but also by supporting local projects and communities that aim to reforest and rewild. As Eden Reforestation Projects say, ‘it takes a village to raise a forest’, and this community-led initiative are reconnecting people with the planet in order to make a true difference.

Supporting these local projects – and also making a difference by actively planting yourself! – seems a hard feat when the world slashes down forests the size of multiple football pitches on a daily basis, but it’s the main solution for tackling reforestation and thereby the climate crisis.

We’ve written about the importance of meaningful marketing before, but we cannot stress enough how vital live experience is for brands to emotionally affect consumers. If you really want to give your audience a wake-up call to the climate crisis, you have to show them (not just tell them) how we’re all individually complicit – and therefore responsible. However, rather than making them feel guilty about the part they play, live experiences are the perfect opportunity to energise and inspire, and a great way to equip consumers with actionable tools and solutions to help communities reduce their impact on the planet.

In our experience, we’ve found that the most impactful live experiences that centre around the climate crisis take consumers on a journey through shock, reflection, curiosity and finally: hope. That’s because people can get triggered by shame, disgust and guilt, which are natural reactions to the state of the environment we have at the moment and the amount of waste we’re responsible for. From there, live experiences can help them heal by giving them a chance to pause, reflect and process.

Using the themes of optimism and hope, we can inspire real change in our communities. And beyond this, we can use live experiences to target those individuals that can make a tangible difference – from policymakers to CEOs, ambassadors to lobbyists, and public figures to donors; we can all be agents of change.

While we’ve already started to implement change in alignment with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, we’ve also been making it a priority to use live experiences to help in the fight against climate change. For instance, our CTO, Robbie Parry, has founded Miracle Woodlands, a meaningful, immersive experience for members of the public that combines educational messages with sound, lighting and strong storytelling to highlight the importance of trees for a sustainable planet. The whole aim of this incredible project is to raise funds to support reforestation and woodland conservation while also encouraging people to be more mindful of sustainability. The way that it’s designed, however, is to help each individual feel closer to nature and the earth, inspiring every person to make changes in their daily lives that help fight climate change. You can read more about this exciting project here.

Other companies and institutions are also using live experiences as a way to motivate their audience and encourage more sustainable choices. A recent example of this would be the LFW Swap Shop, which was launched in 2020. The shop is essentially a clothing and accessories swapping centre but also usually stocks donations from celebrities and British Fashion Council ambassadors. This has been particularly important over the past few years since the fashion industry now accounts for about 10% of our global emissions, and in the UK alone, 3.5 tonnes of clothing is discarded every five minutes.

No industry is immune to climate change, that’s why we need to join together to make a change and ensure that the effects of it are minimal. We’re on the cusp of devastation, and if we don’t shift our mindsets and make changes now, then we’ll face the consequences. The change won’t happen overnight, but we can all do our bit to live more sustainably and live experience is a great way to motivate people to do just that.

“Small acts, when multiplied by millions of individuals, can transform the world.”