Onalytica & TNC analyse nature-related social media conversations pre, during & post COVID

Onalytica are really pleased to launch a report in collaboration with The Nature Conservancy (TNC), analysing the social media conversations from January 2020 – March 2021, on nature-related topics before, during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. With a global shift in attention to the pandemic concerns, we were interested to see if this had a knock on impact into the attention on nature topics.

We set out with the intention to:

• Understand how the conversation around nature and related conversations have evolved over 2020 and in the before and after of COVID
• Understand the importance and the timeline of the Twitter conversation on nature as a whole, as well as nature-based climate solutions, biodiversity, and green recovery policies
• Analyse the nature and longevity of negative nature stories, such as natural disasters, as well as their correlation with climate change
• Examine the correlation between nature, COVID, and the economic rebuild after the COVID-19 pandemic

Some key findings of the report:

• Conversations on “nature” were down by 16% in Q1 2021, compared with Q1 2020
• Less than 1% of “COVID” conversations were linked to the destruction of nature as its cause
• Nature featured in only 2% of social media conversations around “economic recovery”

“While the wider consumer conversation has shifted to focus on the pandemic, the level of focus on the climate debate from policymakers and social climate influencers has remained high. There is an enormous opportunity to address how we live to protect nature and with social platforms able to amplify the voice of the climate concerned we expect environmental issues to be one of the main policy debates areas in 2021.”
Tim Williams, Onalytica’s CEO

“It’s no surprise that the pandemic has dominated social conversations over the last year. What is worrying though is that even while many people took solace in nature in the early days of the pandemic, there is very little appreciation of nature’s crucial role in our own health and economic stability, or the links between pandemics and the destruction of nature.”
Meg Goldwaite, TNC’s Chief Marketing and Communications Officer

For a full press release and more information on this report, head over to TNC here, and to download the full report, click the button below.

Download the Full Report