Why is it important to communicate about your climate efforts?

Municipalities may not always control GHG emissions in their city, but they still play a key role in shaping climate action.

To effectively raise awareness, garner support, and inspire action from citizens, industry and other stakeholders, cities need to communicate about their climate initiatives and commitments actively. 

What can NZC offer you?

The NetZeroCities team is committed to supporting your communication efforts, to help you maximise the impact of your climate action. Here's how!

Share your stories with us, tag us on social media, or post on the Portal, and we can reshare your content, and spotlight your initiatives at EU level.

We want to make your life easier! We make it simple for you by providing pre-drafted key messages, posts, banners or visuals that you can reuse and refine to communicate your engagement with the EU Cities Mission. 

How can we support you?

In this page, you will find a detailed description of the different services we can offer Mission Cities to support your climate communication efforts, locally and at the EU level. Our communications support includes:

• Resources to support your local climate communication efforts
• Enhanced visibility for your work through NetZeroCities channels
• A space for learning from other climate action comms enthusiasts around Europe

To streamline your communication needs, we have launched the "Climate Communications Helpdesk," a one-stop shop where you can request help from our communications team to support your efforts, share your city's success stories, and boost your impact. 

Resources to maximise your efforts at local level:

The Communication Playbook is a guide to help cities communicate their work at local level, but also with the EU Cities Mission and with NetZeroCities. It includes some tips and best practices to communicate climate actions and tools to promote cities’ work, as well as some useful resources from climate communication experts. It focuses on:

Communicating Climate Action

Communicating climate action in a clear, engaging, and actionable way is necessary but not always easy.

We gather, select and curate resources, tips and best practices from climate communication experts to help improve your city's climate communications and get your messages across. Some of them are included in the Playbook, but keep an eye on the Climate Communications group on the Portal so as not to miss any!

Tools to promote your work

• Mission Cities Banners,  downloadable in an editable format for you to use in different online and offline media.
• Tips for social media communication, where you can find all relevant stakeholders to @tag and #hastags to use.
• An Elevator Pitch, adapted to several audience types and available in different EU languages
• A Pitching Slides Deck, an editable deck for you to reuse and modify as needed to accompany your presentations. 
• A Visual Bank, to assist you in finding impactful visuals

In addition, NetZeroCities and the European Commission have produced tailored toolkits, including templates and visuals, to support city communication teams in crafting impactful climate communication materials around key milestones of their climate neutrality journey - for example, for Pilot Cities, Twin Cities, or getting the Mission Label. Check out the files section in the Climate Communications group to find them!

About the EU Cities Mission and NetZeroCities

This section gathers all key information to help you speak easily about the EU Cities Mission.

Some parts of the Communication Playbook are translated in all Mission Cities' language, such as the Elevator Pitch, and elements about the EU Cities Mission.

NetZeroCities as a platform for promotion

We understand the power of storytelling in driving climate action.

By sharing your city's success stories with us, we can help you amplify your message. We offer a platform to showcase your city's achievements on a EU scale.

Whether it's through our blog, social media channels, articles, or newsletters, your story will reach a diverse audience of like-minded individuals and organisations, inspiring others to take action and driving collective progress towards a net-zero future.

NetZeroCities editorial content
Some examples of the communication content we produce:

• NetZeroCities blog: we are launching our blog, in which staff from across the consortium share their experiences and insights in a direct and personal way. This opportunity is also open to cities, and we encourage you take this up via the Communications Helpdesk or by contacting Alan McKenzie at blog@netzerocities.eu.

• Spotlight series: these are long, in-depth articles focused on specific subjects, such as stakeholder engagement, or systemic innovation. The series features success stories and experiences coming from different cities.

• Stories from cities: Those best practices, success stories, innovative projects or campaigns that you run – we can pick them up to write a profile of your city on our website, or showcase your city on social media. For example, take a look at these articles featuring Krakow, Mannheim, or Stockholm and Sønderborg, and consider submitting your good news stories through the Helpdesk. 

Whenever you post something about your climate journey online (Is your city pedestrianising a street? Is your Mayor speaking at an event?) - use our hashtags or tag our accounts so we can help spread the word!

This will also help us know what you are doing – and perhaps pick up one of your stories in our website, newsletter, or social media channels.

Don't forget to tag our accounts:  @NetZeroCitiesEU on X (aka Twitter); @NetZeroCities on Instagram; @NetZeroCitiesEU on LinkedIn; @NetZeroCities EU on YouTube.

You can also use the Mission hashtags (#MissionCities; #EUMissions), and tag the EU Cities Mission accounts (@EUScienceInnov on X; @EU Science, Research and Innovation on LinkedIn; @EU_Science on Instagram). 

Pitching stories to the media

We can support your city in accessing EU media by pitching innovative city stories to various European and international journals. Send us your good news stories through the Helpdesk so we are aware of everything that is going on in your city!

Peer-to-peer learning on communications campaigns and strategies: sharing success (and failure stories) with other comms enthusiasts

The Climate Communications Group within the NetZeroCities Portal

Join the NetZeroCities Portal to connect, share your experiences, and exchange best practices in climate communication!

We have created a dedicated group on Climate Communications, to offer a space for cities to share their experiences - good and bad! - of communicating their climate efforts. This group is meant to gather examples and inspirational ideas about innovative communication campaigns and strategies, so join the group and share your stories now!

This portal group will also serve as a repository of resources, tools, templates and materials to improve your communication impact.

Is there any topic you would like to see addressed by our campaigns? Are you planning communication actions around a specific topic? Join the group and share your views with us, and other cities.