Environmental Defense

75% of Americans believed that global warming was a natural phenomenon. We needed to communicate that humans caused global warming,
therefore humans can do something about it.
Undo it.

In 2003, 75% of Americans were concerned about global warming, but didn’t know how it originated or how they could help. Environmental Defense sought an action-oriented campaign that would break through the information overload and focus on solutions versus problems, the objectives being: get online signatures in support of climate change legislation; provide actionable steps to help people reduce their carbon footprint; raise funds for ongoing communications.

Our Role
Tasked with reaching a wide and varied audience (Awakening Consumers, soccer moms, outdoor enthusiasts, college students, new parents, the press) and therefore needing a simple, human message, Green Team tapped into a critical strategic insight: global warming was caused by humans; therefore, global warming can be fixed by humans. This “aha” moment led to the development of a creative concept that was powerful, optimistic and memorable: Undo It

Results
675,000 online petition signatures collected

$950,000 raised through campaign website donations

53 votes cast in the Senate, passing a Sense of the Senate resolution acknowledging the threat of global warming, Spring 2005

45 votes cast for the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship (did not pass but much higher than expected), Spring 2003

"Green Team had the imagination to turn concern about climate change into action, engaging more than 400,000 Americans with a positive, solution-oriented message."
Fred Krupp Environmental Defense Fund