Environmental Communication Event @University of Amsterdam

Date/Time
Date(s) - 29/03/2023
9:30 am - 6:00 pm

Location
University of Amsterdam, room REC C10.20


When? Wednesday, March 29, 2023

Where? University of Amsterdam (room REC C10.20, Nieuwe Achtergracht 166, Amsterdam)

Who? All communication scholars interested in and/or studying environmental communication

Sponsored by: NeFCA (Persuasive Communication division) and ECoLab

Organizers: dr. Sophie Boerman, Wageningen University & Research; dr. Marijn Meijers, University of Amsterdam; dr. Anke Wonneberger, University of Amsterdam

The consequences and challenges related to climate change and other environmental threats, such as biodiversity loss, plastic pollution, and ocean acidification, become ever more pressing. As communication plays a key role for public awareness and understanding, as well as the development and implementation of solutions on all levels, we also see a rise in interest in environmental communication in the communication science community.

With this event, we would like to bring together scholars based in Flanders and the Netherlands who are interested in studying various aspects of environmental communication. This allows us to get to know each other, familiarize ourselves with ongoing research, and discuss potential future research collaborations.

This event is hosted by the ECoLab at the Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR). We are a group of like-minded researchers who study environmental communication and behavior from various perspectives. One of our aims is to seek out synergies by bridging the different strands within communication science.

Participation and registration

We aim for a diverse group of researchers, that come from different universities, are in different stages of their career, study environmental communication in different contexts, adopt different methods, and so on.

All people who are interested in participating in the event can register here:

https://wur.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_39ip9Hkp7igNHW6

Registration will include a short description (max. 100 words) of your research (interest) related to environmental communication.

Please note: registration closes at March 15.

If you have any questions, please contact one of the organizers.

All participants will be asked to provide a short 3-minute pitch of their research at the event. The aim of this pitch is to inform all attendees about the research that is being done in this field at the moment.

Program

09.30 – 10.00                            Walk in

10:00 – 11:00                            Keynote Cameron Brick: “Developments in pro-environmental behavior research & effective risk
communication”

11:00 – 11.15                            Small break

11.15 – 12.30                            Pitches – Part I

12.30 – 13.30                            Lunch

13.30 – 14.30                             Keynote Joya Kemper: “In this together? Exploring synergies between environmental communications and sustainable marketing

14.30 – 14.15                            Small break

14.15 – 15.00                            Pitches – Part II

15.00 – 15.15                            Small break

15:15 – 17:00                            Roundtables / world café with all participants

17:00                                           Borrel

Keynote speakers

Dr Cameron Brick

Developments in pro-environmental behavior research & effective risk communication

My research group focuses on the motivations and social processes that predict environmental behaviors such as political engagement, reducing meat consumption, or flying. First I will talk about public opinion on climate change and recent advances in measuring and conceptualizing pro-environmental behavior. Most previous studies assumed that pro-environmental behavior is a coherent psychological variable, but recent work suggests behaviors are external, diverse, and have different causes. I will also describe new laboratory tasks with repeated, consequential environmental dilemmas and share a resource of free, open datasets.

The second part of this talk is about effective risk communication. When someone needs to make a decision, how should the information about harms and benefits be presented? Does it matter if it’s an individual medical decision or public policy affecting millions? I will contrast communication goals such as persuasion vs. providing balanced information, and share the best practices for communication methods (e.g., numbers, text, tables, and graphics). Then, I will argue there are four critical differences for communicating about policy vs. individual decisions.

Bio

Cameron Brick is an Assistant Professor of Social Psychology with tenure and he supervises a research group in Environmental Psychology at the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands. His group studies how individuals react to collective problems such as climate change and uses surveys and experiments to predict behavior from thoughts, identities, personalities, and social context. They also study consumer and household decisions from plastics to fast fashion, and communication effectiveness focused on the comprehension of policy options.

c.brick@uva.nl, websitegoogle scholar 

Dr Joya Kemper

In this together? Exploring synergies between environmental communications and sustainable marketing

Both environmental communications and sustainable marketing aim to change consumer behaviour by advancing messaging and understanding stakeholder discourses. Yet, very rarely do researchers consider the overlap between environmental communications and sustainable marketing. Considering the great progress made in both areas, it is now time to explore how the two disciplines can work better together and what they can learn from each other. The session hopes to inspire discussion and collaboration between the two disciplines and researchers.

Bio

Dr Joya Kemper is a Senior Lecturer (Assistant Professor) at the University of Canterbury (New Zealand), aiming to advance research, theory, and practice in ‘marketing for good’ and behaviour change, particularly interested in sustainable and healthy food systems and transitioning towards a circular economy. She has published over 41 journal articles such as in the Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, Industrial Marketing Management and European Journal of Marketing, and has been a part of over NZD$13 million worth of research funding. Joya is also an Associate Editor for the Australasian Marketing Journal and is an advocate for embedding sustainability within universities, interdisciplinary research and early career scholars.

joya.kemper@canterbury.ac.nz, website, google scholar