First ever climate impact award winner announced at Edinburgh TV Festival

The announcement of Joe Lycett Vs the Oil Giant as the winner of this year’s inaugural Climate Impact Award at the Edinburgh TV Festival, marks another important milestone in the TV Industry’s commitment to do more and better climate storytelling to support society’s transition to a sustainable future.

The award comes just under a year on from the announcement of the Climate Content Pledge which was convened by albert and launched at COP26. The pledge was designed to commit broadcasters to consider the climate in all commissioned programmes, from a prime-time drama to a day time quiz show.

Since launching the Climate Content Pledge in November 2021, albert has developed an Editorial Engagement Tool to further support those writing and developing ideas for screen to test their ideas and discover if there are further ways to incorporate climate storytelling. The tool is broken down by genre and asks a series of questions while also providing case studies, impact reports and ‘best in show’ clips along the way to help unlock new creative ideas.

Multiple studies and impact reports support the notion of storytelling as a key factor in society’s transition to Net Zero. The most recent IPCC report flagged that ‘narratives enable people to imagine and make sense of the future through processes of interpretation, understanding, communication and social interaction.’  Additionally, a recent poll by Ipsos Mori concluded that 2 in 3 people, on average, across 31 countries said they were concerned about the impacts of climate change that were already being seen in their country further proving that audiences need and want climate related and solution focussed content on screen.