Today one of our clients, Sierra Legal, launched the first ever global warming lawsuit against Canada. Sierra Legal, Canada’s national law firm for
the environment, launched a landmark lawsuit against the Goverment of Canada for abandoning its international commitments under the Kyoto Protocol. In it they allege that the federal government is violating Canadian law by failing to meet its binding international agreements.
The case has gained immediate and widespread coverage, with national news outlets like CanWest and international ones as far as the UK picking up the story (see Guardian story). (if you see it in other media, we’d love you to post a comment and link below). What a great campaign!
Another of our clients, Environmental Defence Canada, 2 weeks ago launched a high profile youth oriented campaign called FLICK OFF! FLICK OFF! is working to build a movement to fight climate change by getting people to use less energy, and is getting its message heard with its edgy, in your face approach (one of the pages is called "ARE WE FLICKED?").
The campaign is a partnership of some high profile hip retail and media companies including Virgin Mobile, Roots Canada, Much Music, the Government of Ontario (!), and Environmental Defence as their actual enviro group partner who has some credibility in this space. The campaign received some major media exposure and is gaining steam, look for more actions and inspiration to come. (note: we did NOT build the FLICK OFF! site although we were happy to see it is done in Drupal, the open source CMS we use most often)
There are also some fun stories about both organization’s websites. Late last year we were hired, independently, to do a detailed online vision and strategy for each organization. While the long term enhancements and opportunities for online to support growth in both org’s are still in development, we recently launched new temporary versions of both of their main websites.
- Sierra Legal is changing their name this summer, but until we help roll out their new brand and killer new website, we did a quickie site refresh of their old site. The goal was to tell their story better, clean up some of the navigation, and increase online donations and build their list, while moving fast and keeping costs low.
- Environmental Defence spends most of its energy on its high profile and highly effective campaigns, but they needed their own org website to have a fresh new look, profile their campaigns better, and help them raise money and build their email list. This short term redesign accomplished those goals. Next up, Web 2.0-ifying their highly successful Toxic Nation campaign!
The main focus in both cases (as always) was to amplify the incredible and necessary work each organization does, with websites that helps people know what each group does, and connect them quickly to their campaign work that fight for environmental sanity and solutions. Congratulations to both orgs we are very proud to be part of your support team.
