Good Energy helps writers and other entertainment professionals address the climate crisis with confidence and make climate storytelling a mainstream narrative for all audiences.
Nonprofit storytelling consultancy Good Energy serves as a hub for entertainment professionals and climate experts looking to meaningfully represent the climate crisis on-screen across all genres and mediums.
Why is the climate crisis largely absent from our screen? Good Energy founder and CEO Anna Jane Joyner pondered as she noticed the pattern within the entertainment industry, in which mentions of climate change have been largely nonexistent in scripted entertainment. The industry itself has been responsible for pivotal societal changes.
Stories have been used to change society in the past, and when it comes to climate, society is in desperate need of a unifying guide for addressing the problem, said Joyner. Good Energy believes climate change is a generative lens through which to imagine any aspect of a story.
In their latest study, Glaring Absence: The Climate Crisis Is Virtually Nonexistent in Scripted Entertainment, it was found that less than 3 percent of scripted TV and film acknowledges climate change. This glaring gap led Good Energy to develop resources to facilitate the integration of ethical and accurate climate representation in media narratives.
Good Energy now offers workshops, consulting, and The Playbook for Storytelling in the Age of Climate Change, a digital tool that helps creative teams develop climate narratives. The agency has worked with industry partners like Apple TV+, CBC, CBS, Showtime, and Spotify.
The goal is to highlight that everyone has a climate story now, and incorporating these narratives into mainstream entertainment can make viewers feel less alone and even inspired, rather than anxious or hopeless. Climate change is a universal backdrop to our lives and can provide fodder for countless stories that reflect society as it is today, with the power to change the world for the better.
