National Geographic
and Green Consumers

The National Geographic Society is a powerful global brand for exploration and discovery, but most people think of it as a media company. Enter the Greendex – a global survey of sustainable behavior. When first launched, Greendex was intended to show how NatGeo can powerfully inform ongoing policy and cultural debates like those around sustainability. But despite an initial splash, in recent years the Greendex has received limited attention – and its impact on the National Geographic brand was minimal.

Leading a team at Fenton, I saw the wealth of information gathered by the Greendex as an opportunity for some exciting storytelling. I searched through the data to find the storylines that would bring the Greendex into focus and capture media attention, and we found them: consumers who act the most sustainably were the most likely to feel guilty about their impact on the environment, and the least likely to feel empowered to make a positive impact. That left Americans as the least sustainable consumers, feeling among the least guilty and the most empowered. Our top storylines piqued the interest of NPR science correspondent Richard Harris, who ran an exclusive story on the 2012 Greendex on Morning Edition.

Our story-based strategy was a big departure for National Geographic on the Greendex, and it paid off with a ten-fold increase in media coverage over previous years. In addition to NPR, the 2012 Greendex was covered by The Washington Post, The Economist, Agence France-Presse, Forbes, and other top publications. Most importantly, it was a totally new expression of what the National Geographic Society brand could mean today.