What is environmental communications?

There are bound to be on-line definitions for the term environmental communications (which approximates green communications). I would like to add one definition, and that is:   the mode and practice by which we express ideas which have a bearing on the environment, globally or locally, and which include all media, visual, aural, print media, education, pitches and campaigns, social marketing, by which we have a dialogue about the environment (and I have since added this addendum - not driven by a profit motive.  I would call any environmental communications driven predominantly by pecuniary interest to be green marketing, specifically).    

There are several different branches of environmental communication - the first I call the more academic field of peer-reviewed environmental communication which I think is represented by organisations such as the International Environmental Communications Association,  Ecomedia Studies, and others.  These bodies all have websites or blogs dedicated to sharing of theories about environmental communications, researching and writing of articles and the running of courses. 

Then there is the second branch of environmental communication concerned with behaviour change - represented by campaign, education and policy groups (NGOs, schools, and government).  These groups are also interested in imparting education and participating in forums and analysis of the problems at hand, and critically interested in social marketing and ensuring that society adapts to the ever-pressing demands of climate change, habitats declining, resource depletion and the like. 

These two branches are concerned with left brain (rational, logical, linear) styles of communication and of participating in research/ dissemination of theory and the solving of environmental problems faced by humanity. 

I would say these two branches regard the objects of their research as being the environment, habitats, and the subjects as being the behaviour change participants in the environmental world namely the consumer, indeed each and every one of us.   

There is a cross over between what these groups are aiming to achieve, but I believe there is a newer, emerging field of environmental communication which adopts a right brain approach, which looks at the communicator as an equally important subject and participant in the environmental game.   

This is the field I am interested in and the many and various ways we can adapt our styles of communicating to suit the context.   This branch is more concerned  with HOW as well as WHAT we communicate.   Some headings I feel this field of communication will fall under are visual imagery for greening up (eg eco cartoons), green humour, eco-screen dream, eco-creativity (clever campaign ads), making sustainability fun, and other headings discussed throughout this blog, and website and in the online community.  The aims of this third branch of environmental communication certainly overlap with the aims of the first two. This third branch is more concerned with asking both questions (HOW best to express the message, and WHAT do we say) and not necessarily about having all the answers, at our fingertips.   

Using our imaginations, instincts, emotive and sensual responses to fashion our styles of communication we are loathe to say - there is ever going to be one solitary answer to the questions we ask, as it will so greatly depend on the context.