Environment Agency

As an organisation that operates on a national level, Environment Agency has previously struggled to scale public engagement while maximising localisation. We’re helping them to execute engagement strategies across the UK, customising each deployment to the challenges and goals of each specific region.

The deployments are designed to educate members of the public on environmental issues, like flooding and coastal erosion in a digestible way. We’ve activated relevant objects in impacted, high footfall areas, such as flood gates and flood defences at locations with high risk of flooding and created educational content that also delights and interests the community. So far, we’ve deployed in the South West of England in Exmouth, Bude, Truro, Dartmoor, Lower Otter and in the North East in Newcastle, with plans to launch in more locations imminently.

Project Goals

• Boost engagement levels without compromising on the need for location-specific messaging
• Aid the public in better understanding the environmental risks and challenges that their community faces
• Direct users in flooding hotspots to sign up to flood warnings
• Improve cost-efficiency
• Reduce Environment Agency’s carbon footprint for community engagement

• Reduced engagement costs per capita by 92% (12× better value)
• Reduced carbon footprint by 4.93 tonnes (and rising)
• Increased public awareness of flood and coastal issues
• Improved insight into public behaviour; new public sentiment & opinion data
• After just 6 months, Environment Agency’s South West team would have to carry out 40+ in-person engagement events
• Live 24/7/365 – most popular month was August, most popular hour was 12pm and most popular day was Tuesday.

“Finding new and interesting ways to engage people is key. And using Hello Lamp Post technology will help make us more relevant to a newer audience who prefer texting.” – Liz Taylor, Flood Resilience Engagement Advisor