Greenpeace
Agency / Client: Greenpeace
Campaign: Project Climate Vote, ‘Cold Homes Cost Lives’
Brief: How can we sensitively draw attention to the 70,000 excess winter deaths caused by a decade of government cuts to insulation funding
After being onboarded to guide a two-day intensive Project Climate Vote creative workshop for Greenpeace, I was invited to develop one of the resulting, collective ideas: a cemetery made from insulation boards outside Parliament warning, “cold homes cost lives”.
The campaign came as a new analysis of official data revealed that, on average, 58 people a day have died due to cold, damp homes over Tory cuts to insulation funding since 2013.
We used the Winter Deaths announcement as an opportunity to turn Westminster into a cemetery, warning the government that its failure to insulate people’s homes is costing thousands of lives.
Hundreds of headstones made from insulation boards were erected outside Parliament to highlight the needless and shocking loss of life that failed government policy on energy efficiency is causing.
The protest saw Greenpeace activists dressed in respectful black, dutifully install the headstones, engraved with: ‘Dedicated to the 70,463 people who died avoidable deaths in cold homes’ and other messages highlighting the scandal.
There were also fuel bill flowers and an eight metre long funeral wreath message reading, ‘Cold Homes Cost Lives’, which was laid in front of the headstones. All of the insulation boards were donated to cold homes projects after the action.
