With Friends of the Earth, we developed The Big Ask, a campaign designed to take on the biggest ‘ask’ facing our generation, namely the threat posed by climate change. Specifically, the campaign was focused on getting a Climate Change Bill, restricting carbon emissions, onto the UK statute. We wanted to recruit as many people as possible to the cause. To do that we knew we had to get people truly engaged – it’s a big, challenging subject and an old fashioned petition was never going to be enough. Instead we came up with the first ever online march. This was to be a collective effort, which took the principles of the protest march and updated it for the digital age.

Instead of getting people onto the streets, we directed them to our website where they could upload their protest videos and join the virtual march. This enabled them to share their views individually, wherever they lived, and yet be part of the biggest demand for action on climate change in the UK to date. People could also use the site to find and email their MP, reminding them of the necessity of a strong law. We made it easy for non-geeks too, allowing them to use avatars, if they didn’t feel like loading a video. Importantly the site also featured an ever-changing film directed by Sam Brown and Kevin MacDonald (Touching the Void, The Last King of Scotland). This film started as a viral and once the campaign had reached a tipping point we used it as cinema advertising.

People from all over the world have joined. From politicians like Ken Livingstone to celebrities like Stephen Fry and Jude Law to activists like Anita Roddick. Eurostar supported our campaign, showing the film on Waterloo concourse, promoting the cause and celebrating their eco-friendly status.This collective voice became more potent when Razorlight’s Johnny Borrell and Radiohead’s Thom Yorke spread the message to their fan-base, on their own sites and through gigs. Residual PR coverage was significant. Our film appeared on leading women’s websites like Marie Clare.172,000 people have contacted their MPs (target was 65,000) and over a thousand videos and animations been uploaded. The Climate Change Bill is now well on its way to becoming law.