Havas PR today launches its new global climate change communications group, the Havas Worldwide Climate Practice. The team brings together best-in-class communications experts in key geopolitical centers around the world. Reporting into Marian Salzman, PRWeek’s 2014 Global Agency Professional of the Year, the practice will be led by Pete Bowyer, who was the spokesman to former UN Secretary-General H.E. Kofi Annan on climate justice issues in the runup to the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in 2009. The Havas Worldwide Climate Practice will provide strategic consulting, communications advice and campaign mobilization to clients on one of the most urgent issues facing our generation.
“There is real momentum developing across the world as a new global agreement on climate change approaches at the UN Paris Conference next year,” said Bowyer. “It’s a top priority of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the IMF and the World Bank, and world leaders are beginning to face up to the greatest global challenge of our age. But business and civil society have key roles to play as well. The Havas Worldwide Climate Practice will ensure that their voices are a critical part of that conversation, too.”
The Havas Worldwide Climate Practice will have three regional hubs: London (covering EMEA), New York City (covering the Americas) and Sydney (covering APAC). John Casey, global director for the Havas–United Nations Foundation climate change team, will run the Americas hub; James Wright, who leads Havas’ engagement with WWF in Australia, will lead the APAC hub; Bowyer will operate the London office.
On-the-ground experts, each with direct experience with the issue, will support the hubs from more than a dozen countries (including Belgium, Brazil, China, France, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Poland, South Africa and UAE) to cover the leading geopolitical centers of influence. The Havas PR practice embodies the company’s belief that “Local is the new global” by drawing on its local knowledge and excellence in each key market.
“I am unbelievably excited about the launch of the Havas Worldwide Climate Practice,” said Salzman, who is also CEO of Havas PR North America. “Over the past five years, our people have been doing incredible, thoughtful and award-winning work on climate change. Looking ahead, the issue of climate will surely trend in 2015, and no other global communications network can claim our degree of firsthand experience or is better equipped to advise clients in this critically important area.”