Environmental advocacy organizations are using technology to effect change in public opinion and policy. Learn more today!
Technology is often seen as a threat to the Earth’s natural environment – and for good reason. Pollution, deforestation, and greenhouse gas emissions continue to cause damage to our planet’s ecosystems.
But technology can also help save the environment. “Green tech” solutions can mitigate and even fix damage to our atmosphere, waterways, and more. At the same time, environmental advocacy organizations are using technology to effect change in public opinion and policy.
Read on to learn more about environmental advocacy and how tech can improve it.
What Is Environmental Advocacy?
Environmental advocacy promotes the protection of the Earth’s environment and the sustainable use of its natural resources. It can include a number of activities, such as:
- Raising public awareness of the issues
- Educating people about sustainable practices
- Lobbying policymakers to enact environmental protections
- Taking legal action against those who damage the environment
- Participating in protests and public demonstrations
Advocates work to preserve our natural environment, both for today and for future generations. They aim to protect not only human health but also the animal and plant life that enriches the Earth’s ecosystem. From fighting for clean water and air to working for climate justice, environmental advocacy plays an important role in protecting our planet.
Key Environmental Advocacy Issues
The field of environmental advocacy is as vast and diverse as our planet. Some advocacy groups may focus on a very narrow set of issues. Others work to solve broad, global problems from different angles. Here are just a few of the most prominent environmental advocacy issues today.
Clean Water & Air
Water and air pollution have serious impacts on health, local ecosystems, and climate change. The United Nations has recognized access to clean drinking water as a human right, but many people still lack this essential resource. Oceans, rivers, and other natural waters sustain vital animal and plant life and affect human health. Meanwhile, when the air we breathe is polluted, it can cause or aggravate various health conditions. Advocacy groups work to help prevent pollution and hold polluters accountable.
Reducing Contaminants
Toxic substances can also contaminate our homes, food, and other products. Environmental advocates work to prevent these substances from doing harm to humans, animals, and the rest of nature. The use of lead and asbestos has been greatly reduced in many countries, but they still threaten health when humans are exposed to them. The latest substances of concern are man-made PFAS (per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances), which are commonly found in non-stick cookware, water-repellent clothing, stain-resistant fabrics, and more. PFAS are typically “forever chemicals” that take an extremely long time to degrade.
Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Climate Change
Greenhouse gas emissions are the top driver of climate change. These gases trap the sun’s heat in the earth’s atmosphere. While this is a natural process, an excess of greenhouse gases causes rapid global warming. This leads to more extreme weather, rising sea levels, the loss of polar sea ice, and more.
Environmental advocates call for the drastic lowering of greenhouse gas emissions, most of which come from burning fossil fuels. They also promote alternatives to the use of fossil fuels, including clean energy sources like wind and solar power.
Pairing Racial and Climate Justice
Climate justice is a social justice issue. Air and water pollution, toxic contaminants, and climate change often disproportionately impact communities of color. Environmental justice means that everyone, regardless of race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic background, deserves environmental protection. It also means all people have equal access to decision-making on environmental issues that affect them.
Leveraging Tech to Improve Environmental Advocacy
Organizations can use technology to make their advocacy efforts easier, faster, and more effective. From the tried-and-true to the cutting-edge, technology can be invaluable for advocacy groups as they work to get out their message and change policy.
Technology can help environmental advocates identify issues, mobilize stakeholders, conduct research and analysis, communicate with the public, and more. This useful tech includes artificial intelligence, which has the potential to help advocacy groups in new and exciting ways. Let’s take a look at some use cases.
Identifying Advocacy Issues
Advocacy organizations need to clearly identify and understand the issues related to the problem they’re trying to solve. For community-level environmental problems, surveys can be a useful way to identify issues and solutions. These can be conducted online, on digital apps, over the phone, through the mail, and/or in person. Surveys can give organizations feedback about the real problems people are facing in their daily lives. How does the lack of clean water affect them? Is air pollution causing health problems for their families? What kind of help do they say they need most? What long-term changes could address these specific issues?
Mobilizing Stakeholders
Digital technology makes it easier than ever for advocacy groups to mobilize their stakeholders to act. Advocacy groups can send mass emails and text messages with the latest news and campaign information. Some tools allow organizations to tailor these messages to different audiences. They may target a specific geographic area, people who have donated or taken other actions in the past, or those who have shown interest in a specific issue.
Research and Analysis
Online data sets and statistical reports can help advocacy groups research their chosen issues. By analyzing this data, organizations can show evidence for a problem and build support for their proposed solutions.
Legislative research and analysis have become easier thanks to technology. Using tools like Plural, advocacy groups can search the titles and text of bills, narrow down their options with filters, and track the progress of bills that interest them most. This could include legislation that directly involves environmental protections, as well as bills related to industries like energy that often impact the environment.
Social Media
Social media is a powerful advocacy tool, especially for raising awareness. On these platforms, organizations can speak not only to their followers but also to those followers’ connections. Paid advertising broadcasts a message to people who may not be following you yet, but it isn’t the only way. Organizations may be able to get significant organic reach with well-crafted posts that their followers engage with and share.
Many social media tools also offer ways to look for trending topics. If a certain topic related to the environment getting attention, advocates can use this to raise awareness about their issues and bring in more support.
AI
The latest emerging technology for environmental advocates is artificial intelligence. AI tools make it easier to analyze large amounts of data for patterns. They can also help predict trends, which is key for topics such as climate change that focus heavily on the future. In addition, AI can help personalize outreach to both stakeholders and policymakers. It could be used to analyze behavioral and voting patterns to find a message that will resonate with a group of people or a certain lawmaker.
Get Started With Plural
Plural is a valuable tool for environmental advocacy groups. Using Plural, you can:
- Search for legislation. Plural’s advanced search tool allows you to search for terms related to the environment and filter bills by legislature, session, status, and more. You can save your search to come back to it later. Plural also has an option to email you when new bills appear that match your saved search.
- Track bills. Save relevant pieces of legislation and keep up with any changes to it. Plural can send you notifications when any tracked bills are updated, so you can stay on top of their progress.
- Tag bills. Tag any bills of interest to organize them by topic, priority, issue position, and more. If an advocacy organization targets different environmental policy issues, this makes it easy to keep track of them all.
- Look up legislators. Plural’s Explorer tool makes it easy to find information about legislators, including their vote history (when available) and committees. In some jurisdictions, Plural lists contact information for legislators and their staff.
- Collaborate with an advocacy team. Share tracked bills and notes with colleagues who are part of your Plural workspace. You can also share specific bills – or publish a tag to share a group of bills – with anyone.
Interested in getting started with Plural? Create a free account or book a demo today!
