IN THIS ISSUE |
Can a ‘mass media’ solution meet the needs of communicating sustainability? Mr Pedro Toranzo from NCSI Training & Development explains how mass media tools can be learned and applied to improve communication effectiveness Nowadays, nobody can deny the evident and worldwide problems connected to environmental and natural resources mismanagement. Examples such as more frequent droughts; bushfires; enhanced climate variation; acid rain; hazardous waste; water and soil depletion, and pollution are making news headlines around the planet. Since the end of the 1970’s, new concepts and wording related to the sustainable use of natural resources have been slowly being coined by NGO’s, Earth Summits, Corporations and Governmental Agencies. However, there is still no agreement of those concepts. The reason being, different regional, cultural and even religious values and interests influence the interpretation of this topical problem. Nevertheless, there is an increasing international concern about it. These ideas have triggered the NCSI Training & Development R&D team to work on solutions for clients in a new world driven by media. The innovative ‘learning’ company is expecting to launch the new training and consulting tool by mid 2007. As an illustration of the concept, in some Nordic countries and Japan whaling is an accepted practice, in other countries this practice is strongly condemned. The same happens with water management, where in areas such as the Rio de La Plata-Parana or the Amazonian basins there is barely any concern, particularly if compared to Australia, China, North Africa or Middle East, where water management is the main environmental issue. To cope with these matters, a gamut of Environmental Management tools such as Environmental Impact Assessment -EIA-, Environmental Management Systems –EMS-, Media Advocacy & Public Education, Life Cycle Assessment -LCA-, Environmental Auditing and Monitoring, Triple Bottom Line and Natural Resource Policies are being utilised with different results and effectiveness around the planet. Also, nobody can disagree that Media and Educational Campaigns are a very powerful and influencing tool for marketing, corporate image and risk communication. Unfortunately, one of the best examples to show the effectiveness of such tool comes from the Nazi era, when Hitler and Goebbels convinced many Europeans to pursue one of the most bloodthirsty human atrocities, reminding us that those who own the agenda on public issues will also dominate the political scene. Today, Media campaigns are being used to promote goods and services very efficiently. Brands and company names are repeated at almost every corner of our society. Also as long as democracy develops; rights to know, to comment and standing will also become more incorporated into the society to support transparency, direct participation and accountability. Therefore, why not seriously, and consistently, start to use Environmental Media Campaigns to educate the public and promote sustainability or a wiser use of natural resources? NCSI T & D’s course and consulting tool will result a measurable improvement for clients in matters such as Environmental Corporate Image, Risk Communication, and Environmental Marketing, use of Environmental Indicators and Communication Strategies during crisis time. The training will provide top quality and current theoretical views plus case study analysis and media examples regarding worldwide Environmental issues. |