J. Walter Thompson

UNESCO

Government of Canada

The overall objectives of the initiative are:

To communicate the essence of sustainable development clearly so that people on all continents comprehend its basic meaning while encouraging sustainable decision-making across all sectors and to facilitate an on-going dialogue that sustains long-term public engagement with sustainability issues;

Utilize the skills of the international marketing communications industry to develop a global campaign that expresses sustainability as something highly relevant to the personal and work lives of people in every region of the world;

Enable outreach channels of governmental, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations as a means of disseminating messages of sustainable development;

Ensure that the diversity of interpretations and applications for sustainable development are respected and taken into account;

To influence business and industry worldwide, in particular the communications/marketing/ advertising industry, to understand and internalize the messages of sustainable development;

Provide mechanisms to distribute lessons and messages to interested organizations undertaking future work on sustainable development, whatever their geographical location.

This initiative will:

Innovate informal means of education (as opposed to formal education) to help global audiences understand and respond to the value of sustainable development the same way that they respond to the ideas, messages and symbols of the most prominent global organizations;

Empower and enable the public in developed and developing nations to make well- informed choices, and to positively affect how local and multi-national business leaders make decisions;

Focus the power of marketing communications to gain insight on how consumers and citizens respond to messages about sustainability in markets;

Set an example of how the communications industry can use its ability to innovate and its global networks to advance messages related to sustainability and lead social change;

To achieve and measure these results, the partnership will undertake the appropriate market testing in all major regions of the world to determine what aspects of attitude and behavior can change. It will set realistic measurable targets and create appropriate metrics for evaluation.

Target phases for this project will move it from conception and launch to implementation and evaluation.

Phase 1 Create the project concept and plan; launch the type 2 partnership in Johannesburg; engage prospective new global partners critical to project success: August to October 2002.

Phase 2 Build a working partnership with representation in multiple countries; identify further funding sources; commence workshops and research to assess markets and issues to be explored for the communications initiative: November to December 2002.

Phase 3 Develop the communications ideas and dissemination strategy and secure long-term funding from international sources: January to December 2003

Phase 4 Launch the communications program worldwide and begin evaluating effectiveness: January to December 2004

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