COP Cymru: Engaging The Public With Climate Change

At a Glance

Freshwater was commissioned by the Welsh Government to run COP Cymru , a series of climate change-themed events including four Regional Roadshows, five days of virtual events for Wales Climate Week and the hybrid launch of the livestreamed, press-attended Net Zero Wales Plan. Following COP Cymru, Freshwater was tasked with developing 80 case studies to showcase low-carbon initiatives across Wales.

Brief

In line with the COP26 summit taking place in Glasgow, the Welsh Government asked Freshwater to organise and oversee a programme of events that would engage the public around the climate challenge and inspire businesses, universities and citizens to play a role. Afterwards, Freshwater was asked to develop case studies to demonstrate the great work already taking place.

Delivery

Freshwater delivered a cross-channel marketing campaign to drive awareness and registration, as well as built a dedicated online platform that provided access to live and on-demand content. Freshwater used the platform to provide detailed event information, share a toolkit for stakeholders and enable organisations to upload climate pledges.

Freshwater contacted every speaker and event lead to ensure up-to-date, quality and detailed information for the platform. Technical sessions were arranged for every contributor to ensure talks were delivered smoothly.

Subsequently, Freshwater worked closely with the Welsh Government and local authorities to deliver case studies with an even geographical distribution and covering diverse organisations, including business, third sector, local government and grassroots initiatives.

Results

COP Cymru was widely successful in fostering acute public awareness and inspiring citizens and organisations to play a role in meeting the climate challenge. The programme attracted almost 4,000 attendees and included 200 speakers, 38 sessions and 10 fringe events. Climate change groups and internal stakeholders were delighted with the wide-reaching platform.

Digital advertising was extremely effective in driving traffic and promoting COP Cymru to a massive audience in a short space of time. Animated videos accumulated over 100,000 views. Live and on-demand pages attracted over 16,800 page views. Facebook campaigns achieved a high conversion rate to event registrations and generated over 2,600 reactions, of which 84% were either ‘Like’ or ‘Love.’ In total, 4.5 million impressions were made.

In a post-event survey, over 80% of attendees found the event platform, programme timing and speakers “Good” or “Very Good.” Over 60% gave an eight out of ten scores to how successfully COP Cymru enabled them to engage more effectively with climate change issues.

The case study work was equally successful. Freshwater produced 83 written and one video case study in only four months, achieving the required geographic and thematic spread, and gained praise from the Welsh Government for the quality and turnaround.