The Sustainability Communications team will be assessing the the effectiveness of UCLA Sustainability’s current methods of communicating with the campus community. The team aims to determine which channels of communication are most effective at reaching various sections of the campus community, and will be focusing on reaching students and individuals on campus who are not currently associated with sustainability at UCLA.
Sustainability communications have grown in significance throughout the past few years. Given the alarming rate of climate change, it is crucial to call society’s attention to the magnitude of environmental issues. A large quantity of data has been collected on how to tailor messages to reach different audiences, but not on which channels best reach target audiences. In addition, there is an overwhelming amount of studies focusing on sustainability communication targeting single-audiences instead of mix-audience groups. In university settings, the question of reaching audiences that are not actively seeking out information on sustainability has yet to be addressed.
While past SAR projects and the UCLA Sustainability Plan have touched on educational efforts and increasing sustainability engagement, our team will focus specifically on determining channels that work best for reaching a wider general student population, specifically those who are not seeking out information on sustainability. We will be conducting surveys and hosting focus groups to understand how students receive sustainability information, as well as what channels are more effective for distributing messages. Our findings will assist sustainability communicators in tailoring to the actual perspectives of students and choosing channels that work. Communication is a critical component of UCLA’s sustainability strategy and having more clarity regarding which strategies work to reach students can help every sustainability program succeed.
Stakeholder: Jennifer Friedman, UCLA Communications Manager
Team Leaders: Aastha Ginodia and Paige Potvin
Team Members: Jack Barber, Sydney Pearce, Marika Roberts, Tracy Tran