Resource Type: Research & Articles

This guide is designed to help organizations bring a consumer-centered lens to energy policy debates, and to show how utility regulation, affordability programs, and climate justice intersect with state budgets and economic health. By using this guide, you can frame energy affordability not just as an environmental or technical issue, but as a core economic justice concern, one that directly impacts household stability, community resilience, and long-term, your state’s prosperity.

Role model narratives—stories about specific people taking recommended actions—are a proven communication strategy for encouraging socially beneficial behaviors such as climate action. However, the extent to which climate activists share role model narratives on social media has yet to be investigated. To measure the prevalence of climate action role model narratives on social media, Instagram and TikTok posts tagged with the hashtags #climateaction and #climateactivist (dated between August 2021 and October 2024) were collected and a content analysis of the over 600 posts was conducted.

Explore how communities can take care of each other’s needs equitably during a changing climate future.

Potential Energy recently hosted a webinar offering a first look at new research on how to communicate around clean energy during what Americans see as a “cost of living crisis.” The study reveals fresh insights into how Americans are thinking about the cost of living crisis, the role of climate action and clean energy, and what messages resonate most when affordability is top of mind.

The WaterHub and the Climate Advocacy Lab collaborated on research to investigate audience perceptions of government investment in and responsibility for disaster resilience. Though support was widespread for a government role in disaster resilience, those with the strongest support for a government role were more liberal, and held more progressive values, such as environmentalism and compassion, and believe in government involvement and community-based solutions. A test of four natural defense message frames (Collectivist, Equity, Individual Benefit, Cost Savings) found that they all increased support generally, especially among conservatives. In terms of likelihood to take action, the Collectivist and Equity frames were only effective among non-conservatives, whereas the Individual Benefit and Cost Savings frames were only effective among conservatives.