Cutting through all the hot air — talking about air pollution and more from The Workshop

Kia ora from Jess,

This month we’ve been talking about the air we breathe and the work we can all do to build support for policies that keep our air environment healthy.

For most of us in New Zealand, having clean water, oceans and air is important — to protect and maintain our health and the health of the planet. When it comes to the air we breathe, most of us also feel it's especially important that all our children are breathing air that keeps them well.

However, a critical new study into the air we breathe in Aotearoa — The Health and Air Pollution in New Zealand (HAPINZ) study — into the impacts of air pollution on our communities shows us that is not the case in Aotearoa. Many New Zealanders, including our children, and notably children in lower income areas, breathe air in their home, on our streets, in schools, and during their travel journeys that is harming their health. And much of this harmful air is caused by air pollutants pumped out from the many cars and trucks we have come to rely on to move people and goods around.

Read about the health and air pollution study on the Ministry for the Environment website

The good news is that work is happening by people in government to open our streets to healthier forms of mobility and transport — like walking, bikes, public transport, and electric bikes, cargo bikes and cars. Transport policy changes towards building a system that reduces the need to drive cars and trucks in and between our cities will reduce air pollution. However, people in government need to speed up these changes to protect more people, more quickly, and to protect the environment.

The environmental health workers that take care of us all

The HAPINZ study was led by Dr Gerda Kuschel and a team of environmental health specialists. These experts are like an environmental ground crew in our communities — we don't often see them, but they’re working hard to monitor our air and other aspects of our physical environment to ensure we’re all taken care of as we go about our lives.

The Workshop team was asked to help this crew. Our role was to help Gerda and the team:

1. identify how people might think about air quality and health — their mindsets

2. consider how these mindsets might hinder people’s understanding and support for policies that will improve air quality

3. identify ways that people can talk about the issues more effectively when advocating for changes that will make the biggest difference to the health of our air and all of us who breathe it.

Read more of Jess’s blog on our website: Talking about the air we breathe: building support for policies that keep our air environment healthy 

You can also find our Short guide: How to talk about air quality and environmental health on our website

Crafted at The Workshop this month

Can conservative values and messengers share effective climate change messages?

A recent paper and associated videos have got people talking about what happens when we use politically conservative values to frame climate change communications. Our co-director Jess Berentson-Shaw and researcher Ellen Ozarka respond with this blog reflecting on values and climate change communications.

Read the blog - Conservative values and messengers, what's the deal in climate change communications - on our website.

Insights & Examples from the Narrative Movement

Moving Mindsets - 4 Things to Consider when Shifting Mindsets

"Mindsets can change, and with it policies and practices." - Deb Halliday. 

If we want to make the changes that will make the biggest difference, we need to build public understanding and support. This means shifting the mindsets of the general public — not just policymakers. This article by Deb Halliday for Collective Impact Forum highlights four helpful things to consider when you’re working to shift mindsets.

1. Know WHOSE mindsets you need to change

2. Know IF the mindsets CAN be moved

3. Know IF your issue calls for moving mindsets

4. Mindsets are NOT just attitudes, conclusions, social norms and worldviews.

Read the full article - Moving Mindsets - on Collective Impact Forum's website. 

A Great Mode Shift Messenger

We love this article on mode shift from Stuff last week, interviewing bus driver and university student, Ethan Hakopa. Ethan shows us the power of a cool messenger with a great message sharing the benefits of taking the bus – “​​For me, it’s just fun. You meet your neighbours. You see your friends. It builds a little community around the bus.”

Great messengers are those who are trusted by their communities, and who share the same values as the people you are trying to speak to.

Read the full article - Meet one of Wellington's coolest bus drivers - on Stuff's website.

Welcome Minette!

We are delighted to welcome Dr Minette Hillyer to our team as the Senior Narrative Advisor - Insights. Minette steps into this role with over 20 years of experience as a researcher, analyst, writer and teacher specialising in discourse and ways of making meaning. We’ve asked Minette some questions to get to know her more.

What were you up to before The Workshop?
Before joining The Workshop, I worked at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington in the Media Studies programme. I taught and supervised in the area of popular culture (particularly visual culture), media history and critical theory. My research focused on cultural encounters via media, and the ways in which social scientists and other experts historically used media to try to interact with and influence popular culture. I have a particular love for silent cinema. Before that, I was in Auckland for a time, where I grew up, and before that I lived in San Francisco where I was working towards my degree in rhetoric.

What does your ideal Saturday look like?
An ideal Saturday for me would involve sleeping in, followed by a cup of tea and making some bread. I would like to be tramping, or if not tramping, going for a long walk, doing some yoga, spending happy time with my kids and partner and dog, talking with my siblings, seeing a movie, reading a book, and cooking and eating, with no cleaning or shopping involved. I might need Sunday as well, for all that!

What drew you to The Workshop?
I was drawn to The Workshop because I wanted to work in a supportive, collaborative environment which actively worked toward social and environmental justice. I also felt like I really recognised the basis of the narrative work being done at The Workshop, and that my skills and experience could be of use here.

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Get in touch with operations@theworkshop.org.nz if you would like to talk to us about how we can help you with specific advice or do training for your team.

The Workshop Team - Marianne, Jess, Carolyn, Jordan, Gidion, Ellen, Nicky, Jayne, Tom, Julie, Hannah, Minette, and Nick.

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Start with hope — narrative strategies for climate change narrative

Kia ora from Hannah and Julie, 

Here at The Workshop, we have been reflecting on Jess’s latest blog post and thinking about the big changes that are needed to address climate change.

Last month the government released the first Emissions Reduction Plan. It was awesome to see a commitment and resources dedicated to ensuring our children inherit a survivable planet. It is a good step towards a thriving and healthy environment, but there is still much more work to be done. Crucially, this work requires public support and understanding. How do we build this support and understanding? One way is by shifting the unhelpful mindsets that get in the way of effective action. This involves using narratives to build better public understanding of the problems and solutions.

Currently, there are outdated but habitual ways of thinking that hold us back from the changes that will make the biggest difference. These unhelpful climate change mindsets and the narratives that reflect them are the ones that leave us feeling hopeless. For example, a focus on individual behaviour change can crowd out people’s thinking, making it harder to think about the collaborative action that focuses on their role as citizens. We need to put forward new narratives that deepen people’s understanding of climate change and inspire people to act together to make changes that make the biggest difference.

This is where mindset and narrative work comes in. As Jess writes in her blog post, “Effective policies are nothing without the public's ongoing belief in them as important, effective and helpful to the problem, as they have been led to understand it.” People will be drawn to solutions that match the description of the problem. If we want big changes, we need to work on building public support and understanding for them.

Climate Change Q + A with Jess

We've been watching and listening to the public response to the launch of the Emissions Reduction Plan, which sparked more questions and conversations about how narratives can contribute to the changes we need in the climate space. We asked Jess to share her responses to these common questions.

What is your vision for climate change communication?

Oh, that is interesting! For me it is communication that is a plethora of hope filled stories from across many of our different communities. And, in those stories, in which people talk about what matters to them and why from their own unique experiences, there are golden threads (narratives) that people can find that say similar things about how climate change happened and what we can do about it. These golden threads help people grasp the deeper and more complex understanding we have about climate change, the environment and our interconnected systems that all of us are embedded within and reliant upon.

You’ve said we need to talk about people as citizens rather than consumers. What are other shifts we should make when talking about climate change?

People have to be able to feel like we can solve this problem, not perfectly - perfect solutions are not what people do - but in a collaborative, creative and iterative way that puts the things most of us deeply care about at the centre.

It is also vital that we find ways to communicate about the solidarity we need to solve these problems. That it is working together, and recognising all our unique strengths to their utmost. I think that is why in Aotearoa there's so much power in Te Tiriti led solutions, because at the heart of Te Tiriti is a story of solidarity - it’s about collaboration between different people to value and recognise the different strengths of each other’s ways and take best care of each other. If we can find ways to talk about and help people understand the potential for all people to thrive through Te Tiriti led solutions to climate change, and notably to properly recognise the leadership of mana whenua in this space (because we have no problem talking about the leadership of Tangata Tiriti), that would be very powerful too.

What’s the one thing you recommend people who are communicating about climate change start doing now?

Start with hope and our ability to collaborate across communities at scale, it will automatically redirect your own narratives and people's thinking from individualism.

The Workshop in the Media

5 Resources for Talking about Systems Change

In this blog post, Sam Rye recommends five of the best resources, reports and articles on communicating about systems change. The list provides a great starting point for those who are working on the changes that will make the biggest difference and want to deepen people’s understanding on these issues.

We feel delighted to see our guide - Mapping the Landscape, How to Talk About Systems Change in Aotearoa - included in this list, alongside great work from our friends across the globe: Narrative Initiative, ORS Impact, Ella Saltmarshe, the Centre for Public Impact, Dusseldorp Forum and Hands Up Mallee. 

Read the full blogpost here: https://www.samrye.xyz/communicating-systems-change-5-best-resources-reports-articles/

How to Talk about Systems Change - an Interview with Jordan and Jess

“[Systems thinking] is not new to our people. Whakapapa is one of the most complex systems. It is the very fabric of our universe. There are heaps of systems change and systems thinking capabilities in our communities and it’s about listening and learning from our leaders.” - Jordan Green

For a deeper dive on our guide, Mapping the Landscape, check out this interview with our Kairangahau Jordan Green and Co-Director Jess Berentson-Shaw by Paul McGregor from Business Lab. Drawing on their work, Jordan and Jess talked about systems change in Aotearoa and the importance of listening and learning from Māori leaders and te ao Māori.

Check out the interview: https://www.businesslab.co.nz/beyond-consultation-podcast/45

Examples from the Narrative Movement

Unlocking People from Poverty - Dr Innes Asher

“Most parents have a vision that their children can thrive and have opportunities. Most parents want that. Unfortunately, the system has locked a lot of families in so their children cannot thrive and have opportunities - that is, really, called being in poverty.”
- Dr Innes Asher

In this interview on poverty in Aotearoa, New Zealand, Dr Innes Asher does several great things. She:

• Leads with a vision 

• Explains the barriers to that vision, and names the government as an agent - someone who can make change

• Points upstream, towards the systems that have locked families into poverty

• Uses the ‘locked in poverty metaphor’

• Outlines clear solutions. 

For more in-depth recommendations on this topic, check out our guide: Talking about Poverty and Welfare Reform in Aotearoa.

Haere rā Sharon!

It was with equal parts sadness and excitement that we farewelled Sharon Bell from The Workshop this month. Sadness because Sharon has been with us from near the start of our growth into the organisation we are now. She has helped build a solid foundation for this organisation to grow further from, especially in our insights and research work.

Her work on our mode shift project in the early days is especially worth mentioning as part of our "just get stuck in" approach. She managed our projects with aplomb - Sharon has always had a steady hand on the tiller in rough weather. We are excited for Sharon because she heads off to MFAT to reacquaint herself with her real passion - aid and development work. As Sharon says, it's back to her knitting and we know she will knit something fabulous while there. Thank you, Sharon, from all of us at the Workshop. It is never goodbye, only a divergence of the path.

You can get more guidance on narratives on topics from transport, climate change and  justice reform in our freely available message guides on our website.

Get in touch with operations@theworkshop.org.nz if you would like to talk to us about how we can help you with specific advice or do training for your team.

Marianne, Jess, Carolyn, Jordan, Gidion, Ellen, Nicky, Jayne, Tom, Julie, Hannah, Minette, and Nick at The Workshop

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Emissions plan needs public support to succeed — how we talk about climate action will make the biggest difference

The Emissions Reduction Plan is out and buried deep under the equitable transition chapter is a small but important objective for ‘informed public participation’. As experts in helping people understand complex issues and changes that make the biggest difference, what’s our take on the opportunity and risks in this objective?
 

Collective action needs collective understanding and support

Aotearoa New Zealand’s First Emissions Reduction Plan is out. People across Aotearoa have worked hard together for a future where government and industry act so all our children inherit a survivable planet.

The plan shows people care about what our planet can sustain. It’s a good first step in creating the conditions where all people and our environment can thrive. But we still face a barrier to implementing the plan, and the other effective actions that experts tell us are still to come. Many people who are both for and against effective climate action continue to tell the public that making individual low-emission choices as consumers is where their role starts and finishes.

The success of the emissions plan hinges on building people’s understanding and support for the transformative changes set out in it — everything else flows from this.

We need to help people reach a deeper understanding of how climate warming has happened, what the solutions are, who needs to act, and our own place in the collective solutions beyond our role as consumers and individuals.

Read Aotearoa New Zealand’s First Emissions Reduction Plan on the Ministry for the Environment website

People can’t buy or behave their way out of climate change: informing people about ‘low emission-choices’ will fail

The plan signals the government wants informed public participation in climate policy and actions (objective 5). This objective is a fundamental building block for implementing climate change policies that work to ensure we have a survivable planet. One action under that objective is to investigate setting up a new centre to provide public information on the climate:

‘Inform low-emissions choices through a Climate Information Centre: investigating the benefits of a Climate Information Centre that provides a trusted source of information to promote and socialise the wide-scale behaviour changes needed for the transition.’

But a climate information centre that’s designed to ‘inform’ people about ‘behaviour change’ and help them make low-emission ‘choices’ is destined to fail. It won’t ensure informed public participation in effective climate policies and won’t build the necessary public support for the big changes to come. This approach frames the problem and solution of public information as: individuals need information poured into them so they can choose to buy or behave their way out of climate change.  This is simply untrue.

Read the table of actions from the Aotearoa New Zealand First Emissions Reduction Plan on the Ministry for the Environment website
 

Are we citizens or consumers?

Picture the word ‘consumer’. What sorts of feelings and thoughts does it bring up for you? What does the word ‘consumer’ make you think about, what images come to mind, how is that person interacting with the world, and what are they doing? Try to notice what you do not think about?

Try the same exercise with ‘citizen’ or ‘community member’. What images come to mind? How is that person interacting with the world, and what are they doing? What do you not think about?

This exercise is an example of framing — the lens people see something through. ‘Consumer’ and ‘citizen’ are two very different frames that lead to two very different types of thinking about problems, solutions, and who’s responsible for fixing things.

Individual choice won’t solve climate change — we should stop talking like it will 

Consumers making greener choices won’t solve climate change and people know this on a deep level — the scale of the problem is too big. And people get exhausted by being told they’re the ones that need to change when they see what they believe to be not enough action by people in government or businesses, including those causing the problem.

Focusing on individual behaviour can also lead to victim blaming — people get angry with other people if they feel they’re not making ‘better choices’. Consider the vitriol directed at people who bought petrol utes after the subsidy for electric cars was announced. Sure, it's not an ideal action in a time of climate change, but it is misdirection to blame individuals and say they don't care enough to change their behaviour. This thinking doesn’t acknowledge that some people have no choice. 

People don't have the resources, the physical structures, or the right policies to support them to do things differently.  The sorts of changes that will make the biggest difference — ones that enable people’s default behaviours to be low emissions ones — are only a glimmer in the eye of policymakers.  And that’s, in part, because these changes lack public understanding and support and the political will that follows this support.

Effective policies are nothing without the public's ongoing belief in them as important, effective, and helpful to the problem, as they have been led to understand it. If people can’t understand how these policies relate to the problem as it has been framed and explained to them, they won’t support those policies or fight for them. People will also become easily influenced by the stories and narratives of those working hard to maintain business as usual.

How a problem is explained has to match proposed solutions. It’s a hard equation for people if you tell them that the problem and solution of climate emission is one of individual consumer choice — ‘buy an EV’ — and then try to get them to support a complete redesign of urban centres and housing infrastructure.
 

A Climate Information Centre could focus on citizen-level understanding and behaviours 

To deepen understanding and increase participation in climate policies, climate information could engage people as citizens who are working together, over individuals who need to choose to change their behaviour.

A climate information centre that engages people as citizens, not consumers, could help people understand the complexities of climate change. It could help people see what big systems changes are needed, and are being planned for, and see their own role within this. A centre like this could:

• develop a comprehensive strategy for deepening public understanding drawing on the best social science, mātuaranga Māori, and communications theories and research

• research into what works in the Aotearoa context to deepen public understanding on climate problems and solutions in a bipartisan way

• avoid the trap of fact-led descriptions of climate change as the problem about to consume us all

• avoid a myopic and unhelpful focus on helping consumers ‘choose’ low emissions products

• focus on hope-led, realistic stories of the collective solutions that are possible and already being done

• explain the origin stories of climate breakdown and our planetary boundaries in ways that people can connect with and feel empowered to act by

• work in partnership with ‘experts’ including those with lived experience of climate change harms — to build communications for different communities in ways that work 

• deliver participatory models for peoples’ involvement in climate action

• resource  the critical voices and work of Māori and pacific climate change communicators 

• provide resourcing, tools, and support to communicators in different communities to build their own communications that work, for example in schools, workplaces, and rural communities.

Climate communications based on the idea that we are citizens who together can shape effective solutions first, will help people see the bigger picture and the connections between things. This approach helps people understand, agree with, and support needed change — all other actions and behaviours stem from this.

For more guidance on narratives around topics such as transport, climate change,  justice reform and more, visit our website. We have freely available message guides.

Get in touch with operations@theworkshop.org.nz if you would like to talk to us about how we can help you with specific advice or do training for your team.

The team at The Workshop - Marianne, Jess, Sharon, Gidion, Jordan, Carolyn, Ellen, Jayne, Nicky, Hannah, Julie and Tom

The Workshop is growing

Kia ora from Marianne and Jess,

Over the past eight months, The Workshop team has grown significantly. Seven new people have joined our team, each bringing with them a diverse set of skills and experience.

For some of our team, this is a slightly belated introduction. You may already have worked with some of them! Still, we are excited for you to get to know our newer staff members a little more.

Below are the very brief versions of their introductions. You can read a bit more about each of them in this blog, including their ideal Saturday.

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Gidion de Haan

is our Head of Operations. He came to The Workshop from a range of senior management roles in big companies, but before all of that Gidion was a fashion designer in his hometown of Amsterdam. Gidion’s role at The Workshop is to help us be the best organisation we can be, so that we can do great work while taking care of our people and clients.

Tom McDonald

is our Operations Assistant. He came to The Workshop from business support and administrative roles at Regional Public Health and the NZ Drug Foundation, in the thick of the Cannabis Referendum campaign. Tom works with Gidion to keep the day to day operations, human resource, information and financial systems of The Workshop working smoothly.

Nick Beaudoin

is our Project Manager. His most recent roles were in project management and fundraising in the charity sector. He has an interest in public policy, politics and history. Nick’s role at The Workshop is to help all our projects run more smoothly and efficiently, which will help us have more impact, with less stress.

Nicola Henderson

is our Training & Communications Administrator. She joined us after almost seven years living and working in Cambodia, most recently as an Editor in the Marketing & Business Development Team at IDP Education. Nicola’s role at The Workshop includes administering our training courses, production of our publications and assisting with research.

Julie Fairfield

is our Senior Narrative Implementation Advisor. Before she joined The Workshop she led strategic communications for Healthy Families Hutt Valley, where she used The Workshop’s tools and resources. Julie’s role at The Workshop will be to support our clients and collaborators to apply new narratives. This includes mentoring, coaching and helping people use new narratives in the real world.

Jayne Dalmer

is our Senior Narrative Advisor. Before joining the Workshop, Jayne was a consultant for five years with Write Limited — experts in communication that sounds like it was created by humans for other humans to understand. Jayne’s role at The Workshop is to help us all get better at making complex information crystal clear. This involves a lot of writing and editing, as well as helping us all to be better writers.

Hannah Patterson

is our Narrative Implementation Assistant. Before The Workshop, Hannah was studying part-time to finish off her Law and Media Studies degree. Hannah’s role at The Workshop is to help people use new narratives. She works on our message guides, email newsletter and social media posts, and she’s putting together a library of examples of narratives in practice.

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Read more about the newer people on our team in this blog post. To get to know the whole team, check out Our People. 
 

Get in touch with operations@theworkshop.org.nz if you would like to talk to us about how we can help you with specific advice or do training for your team.
 

The team at The Workshop - Marianne, Jess, Sharon, Gidion, Jordan, Carolyn, Ellen, Jayne, Nicky, Hannah, Julie, Tom and Nick

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