In November 2011, the UN hosted the COP17 Conference on Climate Change in Durban, South Africa. CNN wanted to make climate change topical again, and drive interest to their coverage of the COP17 Conference. The core strategy was not only to allow people to engage with the story but to become an integral part of it. To pique interest in COP17 by inviting the audience to take part -and have their point of view represented at the conference.

- The ECOSPHERE Project brought over 120,000 voices to the COP17 Conference in Durban. - The Project generated 6.7m media impressions in the 1 month of the action ( non-CNN media )- 20m viewers tuned in to follow CNN TV’s coverage of the COP17 Conference. - Today the ECOSPHERE continues to grow, displaying over 226,000 tweets from around the world**(as of 27 March 2012)

CNN Launched the ECOSPHERE Project: A living digital ecosystem growing from tweets tagged with #COP17. CNN used a multi-channel activation campaign to invite the world to plant a thought with a tweet and watch the discussion evolve in real-time on the ECOSPHERE microsite: www.cnn-ecosphere.com (Google Chrome recommended)Then CNN brought the ECOSPHERE to the COP17 Conference in Durban, where a digital installation connected delegates with contributions from all over the world. From COP17, CNN then brought the conversation back to the global airwaves, as tweets became the subject of televised debates involving international COP17 delegates.

The ECOSPHERE Project underlined CNN’s core brand promise to take the audience ‘beyond borders’ by empowering hundreds of thousands to have their statements present at the COP17 Conference. The project activated the audience to form part of the evolving discussion building interest and involvement in the climate change story and CNN’s coverage of COP17. The ECOSPHERE Project also utilised all 3 CNN media platforms: TV, Internet and Mobile.