Delivering an engaging and impactful Wales Climate Week 2024
In December 2024, Freshwater successfully delivered its fourth consecutive Wales Climate Week (WCW) programme. Working with a reduced media budget, we managed to maintain high levels of interest and engagement across a diverse audience. Appointed by the Welsh Government to deliver WCW since 2020, we ensured the predominantly virtual event addressed stakeholder needs, while promoting widespread engagement around this year’s theme of ‘climate adaptation’.
30 hours
of live content over five days
64 Climate Conversation events
- a record for the initiative
53% increase
in social media engagement on X
Brief
Freshwater worked closely with Welsh Government to deliver the 2024 Wales Climate Week programme as a fully virtual, week-long event. Objectives included creating and promoting an engaging programme of online sessions for climate stakeholders around the theme of climate adaptation, enhancing accessibility, increasing social media impact and maintaining engagement levels, both during and after the week.
You can also read about our parallel project to facilitate a Climate Conversations fund to enable communities to hold events across Wales by clicking here.
It isn’t often that information about Wales's efforts to tackle the climate crisis is collected in one place, so having the opportunity to summarise the action being taken by Wales is valuable, as well as the opportunity to question and challenge where appropriate.
WCW 2024 attendee
Delivery
We developed a fresh look for WCW 2024, aligning it with Climate Action Wales, the Welsh Government’s public facing national climate campaign. A fixed deadline for session applications was introduced, enabling earlier publication of programme details and boosting pre-event registrations. High-profile speakers, including BBC presenter and journalist Steffan Powell, were scheduled in late afternoon sessions, with all 136 contributors briefed to promote their individual slots, successfully addressing historic drop-offs in viewing figures.
Accessibility was a core focus, with AI-driven subtitles and simultaneous translations offered for all sessions, including a Spanish session with individuals from the Wampís Nation, an indigenous population from the Peruvian Amazon. Session hosts were encouraged to use interactive tools such as Slido and Menti in their live sessions, further enhancing audience engagement.
Marketing activities included multiple digital campaigns promoting different elements of the event, featuring tailored promotional and speaker toolkits, custom graphics and an online stakeholder briefing to maximise the reach of activities. Adjustments to advertising strategies overcame disruptive online activity, while promotional slides and filler videos sustained audience interest between live events.
With so many different things happening across the different sectors, it's very useful to have something like Wales Climate Week to find out what's happening across the country in a very accessible format.
WCW 2024 attendee
Results
Wales Climate Week 2024 achieved 2,358 registrations, with a 36% lower cost per attendee than the previous year. Social media engagement rose by 53% on X, driven by the use of a comprehensive promotional toolkit and proactive engagement with stakeholders. Enhanced website content saw the conversion rate of users to registrations increase from 8.70% to 11.06%.
Live event views increased by 4% year-on-year, with significant growth in On Demand content and views. Climate Conversations exceeded targets, generating 64 successful applications—a record for the initiative. A combination of Freshwater’s strategic approach, injection of new ideas and constant collaboration – both with an expanded client team and the myriad of contributors – ensured WCW 2024 reinforced its reputation as a key event for climate stakeholders.