Repositioning renewable energy to accelerate its adoption and defeat coal with a bold new “Go” campaign.

The Story

Many of the most successful climate campaigns of the past decade have energized people around a “No!”. How do you capture the same passion and energy from stopping what we don’t want to building what we do? That’s what #Repower set to find out. 

Founded by the leading organizations in Australia’s vibrant climate movement, #Repower was a refreshing positive campaign, designed to tell a new story about the benefits of renewable energy, and build people power towards accelerating its adoption by businesses, governments, and households across the country.

Due to our work helping #StopAdani, the country’s largest and most prominent campaign, the #Repower network was interested in moving from a coalition approach towards a more powerful directed-network model. #Repower had to bring in new audiences and build more political will in order to fight partisan attacks from the government and the powerful coal lobby.

Reviewing dozens of research reports and communications frameworks, we worked collaboratively with expert campaigners to define the new story of the campaign, repositioning renewables from a climate-centric (and often doom-soaked) technical message towards one that would appeal to significantly more people and their first-order concerns about energy prices and taking back control. 

Baking this new story into digital mobilization platforms, we then supported the network to build momentum across multiple smaller campaigns at the state and national levels, all connected by the open source #Repower brand and story. 

This fresh approach has struck a chord – helping increase public support for renewables while accelerating Australia’s transition away from coal. Renewables and climate action became a top issue in multiple state elections, and have dominated the 2019 federal election, while large scale renewable energy projects and local adoption continue to explode.

The positive nature of the energy transition and its benefits to consumers and workers is now an increasingly dominant narrative in the country. That’s the power of a new story, aggressively brought into the world by an advocacy campaign.

Our Impact

• Led creation of new story built around renewable energy benefits, designed to activate new audiences outside the urban climate movement 
• Baked new story into digital mobilization platforms and NGO and community partners (website won Best International website at the 2019 Reed Awards, from Campaigns & Elections)  
• Supported campaign transition from coalition-style effort to more potent directed-network campaign 
• Renewables issues dominated multiple state and federal elections 
• Public support for the environment, climate action has grown significantly as has narrative shift on renewables