Many technology developers in the bioeconomy and cleantech sector struggle to communicate the green credentials of their technology. To address this, a training event was carried out in York, UK, on the 8th of November 2017 as part of the BioBase4SME project, hosted by one of the project partners, NNFCC.
The training was led by Barbara Mendes Jorge from Sustainability Consult, a consultancy specialising in communication within the bioeconomy and cleantech sectors. Ms Mendes Jorge started the session by introducing some of the challenges associated with communicating sustainability, particularly around green washing, and gave some examples of poor green communication. In the interactive part of the training, participants worked on a brief communication plan for their organisations and chose some key messages. The afternoon session included a training session on using social media to communicate key messages around sustainability; a hashtag for the training event was also introduced (#BioSustyComms).
The event was attended by sixteen attendees from six SMEs (of which two were technology developers) and two universities. All attendees reported feeling inspired after the workshop, and almost all learnt new information. Most attendees made useful contacts within the region, and some saw opportunities for collaboration. As most attendees were from the UK, this training event will be repeated in Brussels, Belgium in 2018.
UPDATE 2018:
- Although no-one applied for a coupon, there is still ongoing communication with one of the SMEs, as this SME participated in the NWE survey about hurdles within the bioeconomy.
- In addition, it turned out that there is a much better connection to the University of York and NNFCC, as some of them attended the event.
- There were some positive internal additional outcomes to present, as one of the people who attended joined the NNFCC team!