While there has been a decade of action reducing the climate impact of road transport, aviation has fallen behind. The sector is currently responsible for more than four per cent of climate pollution in the European Union and demand for air travel continues to grow. In Europe alone, some 660,000 more people could be taking flights each year by 2040. This could mean we continue to see a rise in emissions at precisely the time when they need to fall to zero.
While new technologies to reduce the climate impact of flying are coming to the market, these alone won’t get aviation on a pathway to net-zero. We need measures to effectively price the use of fossil fuels within the aviation sector, curb excessive flying and tackle the unchallenged expansion of the sector. But the success of these measures could be defined by how well they are messaged to and received by the public. Right now this topic is being fuelled by misinformation that positions these measures as a in issue of social justice, by taking away people’s right to travel, and elevates technology as the only solution to tackling aviation emissions.
Research conducted by More in Common in late 2023 aimed to help policymakers and campaigners to better understand the public’s current attitudes to flying. Their report, “Europe Talks Flying” underlined the challenge. Do this transition well – reflecting the public’s values and priorities – and it could form an example of how the transition to a cleaner economy more widely can be handled effectively and fairly. But do it badly and communicate it poorly and there is the risk of both undermining broader consensus on climate action, as well as setting back progress on aviation decarbonisation significantly.
Who are the persuadables?
The persuadables – a term coined by ACT Climate Labs – are the silent majority that believe climate change is happening, are broadly supportive of climate action, but have minimal engagement on the issue.
This audience is usually: politically indecisive or moderate, from a working-class background, unlikely to consume news but gets it from social media, and unlikely to align with activism.
Understanding this audience is critical to being able to shift public opinion and putting constituency pressure on political leaders.
With this in mind we partnered with ACT Climate Labs, founded by ethical agency Media Bounty, and Walnut Unlimited, a market research agency who specialise in
unleashing the power of neuro and behavioural sciences, to better understand the narratives and frames that would resonate with a broad public audience and make them receptive to policies to tackle aviation’s climate impact.
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Get in touch today and receive a copy of the report to:
- Understand how we used insights from neuro and behavioural sciences to better understand what narrative and frames resonate with a broad public audience on aviation and climate change.
- Gain access to tested and proven narratives to strengthen your communications efforts, along with tips to making our messaging work for persuadables.
- Access a creative framework to turn these insights into creative communications outputs, as well as some ready made creative concepts to provide inspiration.
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