How The Guardian’s commitment to the environment is building reader loyalty and additional revenue

Climate and environmental issues are a key element of The Guardian’s journalism, and the publisher is using environmental sustainability effectively to increase reader engagement in a way that also complements its business model.

The aim of the publisher’s environmental reporting is not to “make people despair or feel hopeless” but to “build hope,” said Julie Richards, The Guardian’s Director of Sustainability and Operational Transformation.

“We believe that by providing the facts, the information, the ideas and the opinions that help people form their own view, we hopefully can help them decide how to take action in their own lives in whatever form that might take,” she said.

Richards spoke about the publisher’s commitment to environmental issues at WAN-IFRA’s World News Media Congress in Copenhagen.

Because The Guardian wants to let “as many people as possible to access our journalism,” Richards said it has built a commercial model that is consistent with that vision: The Guardian has famously avoided a paywall in favour of a more open approach that invites readers to support them voluntarily.

This commercial model has worked very well, Richards said: “Today we have well over 1 million paying supporters, who give us money on a regular basis to fund our journalism.”

Read more: How The Guardian’s reader revenue strategy is paying big dividends

The reason why people choose to contribute to The Guardian is largely because they want to support the publisher’s purpose and vision of independent journalism that is open to everyone, Richards said.

“That’s quite a strong emotional connection. And I think those readers expect that the way we behave as a business – our own internal policies, actions, behaviours – live up to the values that they see come through in our journalism,” she said.

Climate and environmental issues are a particular area where the publisher aims to align its actions with readers’ expectations.

“Our environmental journalism is a cornerstone of our editorial output. It’s an area that we really excel in, that we treat very much as core news. We give it more prominence than a lot of our competitors do,” Richards said.

“This is a real point of affinity between [our readers] and The Guardian because they recognize the difference between our coverage and what they see from a lot of our competitors.”

Environment ‘moments’ to report progress

The Guardian’s commitment to environmental issues was solidified with its 2019 climate pledge, which was a public commitment to quality environmental journalism.

The pledge also included a commitment to reduce The Guardian’s own environmental footprint as a business, including steps such as stopping accepting advertising from fossil fuel companies.

Since then, The Guardian has run an annual environment “moment” campaign to report back to readers on its progress in meeting these commitments.

Initially, the annual campaigns focused specifically on climate and highlighted the year’s top environmental stories of the year, including opinion pieces from columnists and guest writers. The Guardian also used the campaigns as an opportunity to tell readers about the actions it was taking as a company to reduce its environmental impact.

The most recent annual campaign, in 2023, had a broader theme of biodiversity and nature, and the publisher worked with researchers to conduct a biodiversity audit to better understand the environmental impact it has through its print supply chain and other activities.

“We created lots of nice graphics to try and really bring it to life for our readers and make it much less dry than your typical sustainability report and be open about what we’re doing and the choices that we’re making as a business,” Richards said.

Image source: The Guardian

Climate campaigns drive reader donations

Because the publisher’s audience is largely aligned with its commitment to the environment, The Guardian uses these annual “moments” as an opportunity to build trust and engagement with readers, while also creating broader marketing efforts around them, Richards said.

“What we’re trying to do with these campaigns is to remind people of the value of independent news, the value of environmental journalism, and encourage them to support us in order to keep funding that,” she said.

“We use all of the same tools that we would use for other marketing campaigns. We have banners across the site. We use pieces at the bottom of articles. We use targeted emails to our subscriber base. All themed around that year’s theme of the ‘moment’.”

The Guardian features its environmental campaign prominently on its website as part of its donations appeal. 

Readers have responded very positively to these campaigns, and Richards said many are happy to see “a news organisation really taking the topic seriously and giving it the prominence it deserves and trying to report in a factual and non-sensational manner.”

The business impact has also been significant: The Guardian has generated more than 3 million pounds (about 3.5 million euros) in additional revenue from these campaigns during the past five years, Richards said.

“For us, it really feels like a virtuous circle, because the more we do these, it supports our commercial model and helps build loyalty and longevity of our subscriber base,” she said.

“And from a business point of view, it shows that sustainability action at a corporate level isn’t just a cost. It isn’t just a burden that we have to deal with.

“Actually, it’s something that can be really galvanising for the business. And it encourages us to go further because we want to have new things to report back on and tell our readers year after year.”

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