We are experiencing a climate crisis. Everywhere you look there is news of more extreme weather events, occurring with higher frequency and intensity as our world heats up, displacing millions and threatening our future. Human activity has thrown the Earth’s natural rhythms off-kilter, placing ourselves and the rest of the planet in danger. But I do not need to explain the science to you, or hammer home the graveness of our current situation. What we all need are solutions.
This is where Nature comes in. Throughout history us humans have had to rely on Nature for the majority, if not all, of our resources. By doing so, we have ultimately depleted a key buffer in mitigating climate change. Though efforts now are being made to prioritize nature’s role in addressing the crisis, as with everything more could be done, alongside other climate solutions.
I’ll leave it to an expert to explain:
James Lloyd – Director at Nature4Climate
“We know there is no way to limit warming to 1.5 degrees without nature based solutions for climate change. Increasing ambition to tackle climate change means committing to BOTH a fast and deep energy transition AND massive investment in natural climate solutions. Until very recently – nature had been forgotten as a critical solution to climate change with the potential to be 30% of the solution by 2030. Now, as governments and businesses start to realise the potential of investing in Nature Based Solutions we are seeing things shift. Over the course of the last 18 months, the overall share of the climate conversation has shifted from 1% to 5% discussing Nature Based Solutions.”
WHERE DO INFLUENCERS FIT INTO THIS?
With their large platform and engaged audiences, influencers have a key role in spreading awareness of this piece in the climate change puzzle – shifting that share of voice so the level of conversation around Nature-based solutions reflects their importance.
Onalytica have analysed an audience of 3.5k sustainability influencers to understand current perception and awareness of Nature-based solutions within the Climate Change debate and how organisations can leverage those influencers to drive policy change.
Below is a snapshot of the relative attention paid towards the Climate Change debate and climate solutions by this already captured audience for the past year.
WHAT NATURE-BASED SOLUTIONS ARE DRIVING THE INFLUENCER CONVERSATION?
This data was collected from our Influencer Relationship Management software (IRM). If you are interested in learning more about identifying, managing and engaging with influencers click below to request a demo!
Among influencers, there is really no breakaway solution driving the conversation, though the rapid increase during August of the Improving Land Use topics gives us an interesting case study: The Amazon Rainforest.
Wildfires have been ravaging the Amazon Rainforest, and its only within the last month that awareness has really taken off. Rainforests such as the Amazon act as key carbon sinks and buffers against climate change. Changing land-use practices have been brought into the conversation as a key driver of accelerating the impact of the wildfires.
As the lungs of the world burned, conservationists & politicians alike were reminded of the cost of deprioritizing Nature-based Solutions.
James Lloyd – Director at Nature4Climate
“This conversation needs to be reflected in the real economy. As we enter the global decade of regeneration, proof of concept will be seen in the restoration of our forests, shifts to regenerative agriculture practice, investment in the restoration of our degraded land and soils and the greening of our cities. All of this needs to accelerate at a speed never before seen in history. Now we must match the devastation and speed of the past destruction of nature with an equal or greater impetus of regeneration and the recovery of nature.”
TOP INFLUENTIAL INDIVIDUALS ON NATURE-BASED SOLUTIONS
We looked into which individuals were driving the most engagement on the nature-based solutions conversation. Below are the Top 30 for the past 6 months.
| Rank | Twitter Handle | Name | Role | Influencer Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | @GeorgeMonbiot | GeorgeMonbiot | Journalist | 100 |
| 2 | @GretaThunberg | Greta Thunberg | Activist | 67.56 |
| 3 | @andersen_inger | Inger Andersen | Policy Maker | 56.3 |
| 4 | @RARohde | Robert Rohde | Academic | 47.33 |
| 5 | @BillGates | Bill Gates | Business Leader | 46.95 |
| 6 | @MichaelEMann | Michael E. Mann | Academic | 46.76 |
| 7 | @GlobalEcoGuy | Dr. Jonathan Foley | Academic | 39.69 |
| 8 | @davidnabarro | Dr David Nabarro | Advisor | 37.02 |
| 9 | @Peters_Glen | Glen Peters | Academic | 32.25 |
| 10 | @KHayhoe | Prof. Katharine Hayhoe | Researcher | 31.3 |
| 11 | @pepcanadell | Pep Canadell | Researcher | 27.1 |
| 12 | @MikeHudema | Mike Hudema | Activist | 26.53 |
| 13 | @NaomiAKlein | Naomi Klein | Journalist | 26.53 |
| 14 | @WWF_DG | Marco Lambertini | NGO Professional | 26.53 |
| 15 | @StephenWoroniec | Stephen Woroniecki | Researcher | 24.43 |
| 16 | @EmmaHowardBoyd | Emma Howard Boyd | Government | 24.24 |
| 17 | @SarahEMyhre | Dr. Sarah Myhre | Academic | 24.05 |
| 18 | @piersforster | Piers Forster | Academic | 23.85 |
| 19 | @hausfath | Zeke Hausfather | Researcher | 21.95 |
| 20 | @PaulEDawson | Paul Dawson | Industry Expert | 20.61 |
| 21 | @david_joffe | David Joffe | Advisor | 20.04 |
| 22 | @NathalieSeddon | Nathalie Seddon | Academic | 18.89 |
| 23 | @RHarrabin | roger harrabin | Media | 17.94 |
| 24 | @TimChristo | Tim Christophersen | Government | 17.75 |
| 25 | @ASteiner | Achim Steiner | NGO Professional | 17.56 |
| 26 | @YebSano | Yeb Saño | NGO | 17.37 |
| 27 | @KA_Nicholas | Dr Kimberly Nicholas | Academic | 16.98 |
| 28 | @JesseJenkins | JesseJenkins | Researcher | 15.84 |
| 29 | @JoyceMsuya | Joyce Msuya | NGO Professional | 15.46 |
| 30 | @AssaadRazzouk | Assaad Razzouk | Industry Expert | 15.46 |
TOP INFLUENTIAL BRANDS ON NATURE-BASED SOLUTIONS
We looked into which brands were driving the most engagement on the nature-based solutions conversation. Below are the Top 30 for the past 6 months.
| Rank | Twitter Handle | Name | Sector | Influencer Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | @UN | United Nations | Inter-government | 100 |
| 2 | @UNEnvironment | UN Environment Programme | Inter-government | 51.8 |
| 3 | @UNFCCC | UN Climate Change | Inter-government | 46.8 |
| 4 | @FAO | FAO | Inter-government | 41.6 |
| 5 | @IPBES | IPBES | Inter-government | 39 |
| 6 | @WorldResources | World Resources Inst | Non Profit | 38.5 |
| 7 | @theCCCuk | CCC | Inter-government | 35.1 |
| 8 | @WorldBank | World Bank | Inter-government | 33.3 |
| 9 | @Microsoft | Microsoft | Technology | 30.3 |
| 10 | @MSFTIssues | Microsoft On the Issues | Technology | 26.3 |
| 11 | @nature_org | The Nature Conservancy | Non Profit | 24.5 |
| 12 | @GlobalGoalsUN | Global Goals | Inter-government | 23.4 |
| 13 | @theGEF | GEF | Non Profit | 21.9 |
| 14 | @grist | grist | Media | 19.9 |
| 15 | @UNESCO | UNESCO | Inter-government | 16.2 |
| 16 | @WBG_Climate | World Bank Climate | Inter-government | 15.3 |
| 17 | @IUCN | IUCN | Inter-government | 15.2 |
| 18 | @ProjectDrawdown | Project Drawdown | Non Profit | 14.5 |
| 19 | @ConservationOrg | Conservation Intl | Non Profit | 13.7 |
| 20 | @UNDPClimate | UNDP Climate | Inter-government | 11.5 |
| 21 | @voxdotcom | Vox | Media | 11.5 |
| 22 | @YaleE360 | Yale Environment 360 | Academia | 11.2 |
| 23 | @WMO | WMO | OMM | Inter-government | 11.1 |
| 24 | @WWF | WWF | Non Profit | 10.6 |
| 25 | @foodtank | Food Tank | Non Profit | 10.5 |
| 26 | @CarbonBrief | Carbon Brief | Non Profit | 9.9 |
| 27 | @ExtinctionR | Extinction Rebellion | Non Profit | 9.7 |
| 28 | @ucanr | Ag & Natural Resources | Academia | 9.2 |
| 29 | @EnvAgency | Environment Agency | Government | 9.1 |
| 30 | @c40cities | C40 Cities | Non Profit | 9 |
MAPPING THE COMMUNITY
Here is a network map of most engaged brands & individuals on nature-based solutions in the past 6 months
This map was created with our Influencer Relationship Management software (IRM). If you are interested in learning more about identifying, managing and engaging with influencers click below to request a demo!
For more information please check out nature4climate’s website
Disclaimer: As ever with these lists, it must be stressed that the ranking correlates to a strong indication of influence. The individuals listed here are undoubtedly influential when it comes to driving discussion around the above key topics. Onalytica’s PageRank based methodology is used to extract influential experts on a particular topic and takes into account the number and quality of contextual references that a user receives – this allows us to identify Topical Authority (reference) – our priority influence metric. We analyzed topical authority via their social engagement on Twitter and how much influential experts were referenced in association with charity on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Forums, Blogs, News and Tumblr content. These calculations also take into account a user’s resonance (topical engagement) relevance (number of posts on topic, and % relevance – the proportion of their social content on the topic) and reach (number of followers). If you want to learn more, please read our article that outlines How to identify your target influencers.
At Onalytica we love building these lists and want to give back to our loyal readers as much as we can. If you’re interested in other topics (such as Virtual Reality, Digital Health, Digital Marketing) be sure to have a look on our blog or why not propose some topics to us on Twitter?
Effective influencer marketing starts with identifying relevant influential experts for your brand. Onalytica’s Discovery platform mines over 200 billion posts a year into a curated database of over 700K global social media influencers, including data from Twitter, Blogs, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn Profile Links + Demographic Data. Our software enables you to identify influencers by topic, demographic or content and includes real-time tracking and measurement reporting to scale your influencer relations.