Getting The Message Across – WWF’S and ISDE’s Perspectives on Communication Strategies to Reduce Exposures to Hazardous Chemicals

Summary

This paper addresses the topic of communicating the issue of hazardous chemicals to different audiences with regard to the ultimate goal of reducing the impact of chemicals on health and the environment. It is a broad topic, because action to reduce risk can be taken at many levels, ranging from the level of the individual right through to regulatory action to ban an individual chemical under a global Convention.

Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), such as the International Society of Doctors for the Environment (ISDE) and the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF), the global environment network, carefully plan their communication strategies to embrace a mix of target audiences, with a view to achieving the greatest protection of humans and/or the environment with their relatively scarce resources. This paper summarises some of the strategies adopted by WWF and ISDE, and considers more generally some of the questions that need to be addressed prior to embarking on a campaign.

Organisations also need to consider what their particular niche is, in terms of what they can do best, and where they will have most added-value. Vehicles for communication are numerous and include, amongst others, conferences, websites, leaflets, research journals and other publications. For some audiences, well-founded scientific arguments will be most persuasive, but other audiences may have a more emotional basis for determining what is acceptable. It therefore needs to be recognised that a mixture of different approaches will be required for communicating with different audiences, and also, to achieve the optimum results the approach may need to change over time. Furthermore, working with other groups and sharing experiences and knowledge can undoubtedly improve effectiveness.