British Creativity and the Climate Crisis Research Report
Doc Society wanted to understand how best to engage UK creatives from diverse (non-white) backgrounds in creating climate storytelling for a range of British audiences, with a particular focus on climate justice storytelling. POCC conducted a research report, interviewing and surveying creatives from a range of roles, backgrounds, ethnicities, ages and genders to understand the key barriers and opportunities for enabling climate justice storytelling amongst UK global majority creatives. The findings went on to inform Doc Society’s Climate Story fund, now supporting 6-8 non-fiction projects expressing a vision for a ‘Climate Just Future’ with up to $1oo,000 grants. In the past three years the Doc Society Climate Story Fund has awarded $3.3M to 33 stories that move us closer to a more climate just and biodiverse future.
Key barriers identified in the research:
- Lack of funding is considered the biggest barrier to BIPOC creatives in telling more climate stories, with 70%+ of survey respondents saying funding was the biggest issue when seeking opportunities to create content
- When it is made available, the traditional funding process is not accessible for many BIPOC creators.
- Participants spoke to examples of how structural racism within both the creative industry and society works against non-white creatives in engaging in the climate crisis narrative.
- For these reasons, the climate crisis is considered a fight afforded only to the privileged
- Whilst there wasn’t a huge emphasis on the role of media in amplifying climate crisis stories from BIPOC creators, platforms are not considered to be doing enough to support diverse narratives and perspectives.
- Whilst professionals are already skill sharing and supporting up and coming creatives, there is still a knowledge gap between creatives and access to trusted sources of climate information
Opportunities for funders and channels to support more global majority creatives to tell climate stories includes:
1.Provide More Avenues Of Funding For Poc Creators, And Work With Creator Communities To Amplify And Award These Opportunities
2. Make The Funding Process Simpler To Comprehend, Easier To Access And More Inclusive
3. Support The Collectives, People, Spaces And Programmes That Are Already Investing In Poc Creatives To Develop Their Skills In Telling Stories
4. Work with Media Partners and Companies to Amplify the Work of POC Creators Focused on the Climate Crisis
5. Include Global Majority Creators in the Central Climate Narrative and Feature Stories That They Can Relate To
Read the full report and find out how you can support more UK creatives to tell climate stories today: