Vision, Methodology, Content Overview

Vision and Purpose

The acceleration of global climate change threatens the health of both the environment and communities that inhabit it. Local governments can help protect their respective communities and ecosystems through the promotion of best municipal and household level sustainability practice. This is often easier said than done, due to barriers facing the majority of municipalities including: lack of resources, staffing capacity, overstretch, and budgetary constraints. To alleviate these burdens to an extent, this toolkit offers municipalities a comprehensive guide to running a successful sustainability-centric communications campaign and ready-made content adaptable for a wide array of media mediums.

The intention of this toolkit is to aid local governments in developing a long-term system to share and promote best sustainability practices to communities within their jurisdiction. Empowering communities to adopt greater sustainability practice — starting at the household level—will translate into a wider movement towards fostering a 'greener' Michigan.

Why? How? Who?

The benefits of adopting greater sustainability practice, starting at the household level (e.g. planting native gardens, composting, etc.) and to a broader community level (e.g. participating in environmental town halls, attending green volunteer events, etc.) benefits us all. In an era of unprecedented climate risk, it is pertinent that communities band together to reverse this harmful trend through collective sustainability-centric action.

Municipalities can use the Green Communications toolkit to produce and disseminate valuable sustainability messaging to communities to generate greater local environmental stewardship

Methodology

The toolkit was developed through analyzing a variety of case studies from successful municipal sustainability campaigns, in addition to general best communications practice resources. The toolkit draws from a host of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) guides to ensure the strategy is representative of all residents and does not perpetuate harm, nor exclude historically marginalized community perspectives in the realm of sustainability and communications. The toolkit is intended to serve as a transferable resource for local governments. However, many of the materials presented are relevant to non-profits, other levels of government, citizens action groups, and community members.

Green Communications Toolkit Navigation

The Green Communications Toolkit is split into 4 key sections. The first section discusses problem scoping and goal setting. The second section explores key messaging strategy and green communications best practices. The third section details evaluation metrics and considerations for green communications continuance. The final section offers sample media content and a plethora of resources for green communications campaigns.