Objective

What drives us

A study by Professor Damon Centola out of the University of Pennsylvania shows that for widespread societal change, you only need 25% of the population to adopt a habit in order to create a social tipping point. Through Imagine5’s positive climate storytelling we wish to influence people to live greener lives and thus create a ripple effect of sustainable change.

Imagine5 does this by meeting people where they are and trying to bridge the gap between culture and climate. Our social media accounts are built off inclusion, bringing people into the fold by welcoming all to look at how they can live a greener life through tips, aspirational storytelling, profiling inspiring and relevant cultural figures and highlighting all the things that are going right and all the initiatives that are already happening to bring hope to people – ultimately driving them into action.

Strategy

Plan of action: 

Everyday we share something that we hope will inspire people to live a greener life. Wanting to inspire people, we looked at where we could have the best impact. Through social media we could meet people where they are and reach a wide engaged audience. 

Execution:

We wanted to create the largest impact we could so we did some research to figure out who we would target. We looked at Project Drawdown’s research on the most impactful things people can do for the planet. We then focus on these specific topics in the realm of our content pillars – food, lifestyle, innovation, culture and nature. It's within these topics that we're able to build all our stories – stories that typical climate media organisations might not look at or feature.

Many organisations focus on and centre popular activists like Greta Thunberg or David Attenborough – and even though we love their work – we also know that it's hard for the general public to care or relate to hardlined climate activists. That's why we choose to focus on people that don’t come to mind straight away as climate activists, like musicians, actors or sportstars. Through this choice we are able to bring the topic of climate to a pop cultural audience and showcase the incredible work being done for the climate. Not in a distant future or for a 2030 net-zero goal – but right now.

On social media we understand there's a broad range of topics people wish to learn about and take inspiration from, so we aim to create engaging videos and carousels of all kinds. Anything from meditative videos that focus on a specific person or place, to lighthearted videos based on simple tips, or short snippets recapping developing news, and many more styles. We also have recurring formats that our audience loves – "In the Kitchen with…", our series featuring famous plant-based chefs, which shows the simple deliciousness of eating for the planet, "Are They Onto Something?", a series that looks at different cultural and political innovations from nations around the world, so that we can learn from each other and address climate change together.

Challenges faced & overcome

• Discussing the topic of climate online certainly brings up a lot of emotions for many viewers/readers. Due to our style of storytelling we bring many people into the fold – this is at times difficult to navigate but not impossible. Differing opinions in the comment sections also means that thoughts can be discussed freely within our community, so we welcome heated but thoughtful discussions. We are all here to learn and become better for the sake of the planet.
• The constant necessary balance between speaking and appealing to our own eco-chamber, while also breaking outside of it to change mindsets and find compromise along the spectrum. We're very mindful of the words we choose and the angles we pick, to avoid polarization and promote openness and dialogue instead.

Results

Impact in numbers
In 2025, we accelerated our influence. Hitting 515k followers across social channels, growing by 100% from 2024. Our content was viewed 257+ million times (42% increase) and engaged 17.5 million times (140% increase). To us, this breakthrough growth proves that we've been able to, on a first level, reach people with our message, and on a second level, help them become sustainable ambassadors within their social circles – further proof of that is the 156% increase in shares (to 242k) which pushed our sphere of influence further.

Celebrity exposure
We also saw many notable figures interact with our work – story shares from Shawn Mendes and Leonardo Di Caprio to likes and comments from SZA, Michael B. Jordan, Zoe Saldana, Patricia Arquette, Natasha Lyonne and many more. With a greater sphere of influence than ourselves, through them we're able to reach an even broader range of people and contribute to making sustainable living a more mainstream topic.

Giving grassroots a platform
We routinely profile smaller organisations doing impressive grassroots work. Through our storytelling we're able to give them more notoriety so they can continue doing what they do best. For example, Heartscapes in Melbourne Australia – they're converting green spaces to boost native pollinator populations. Through our collaborative post, they increased their following by 30%, gained volunteers and features in local news outlets.

Internal growth numbers are a great victory on our end, but they mean that much more when they directly empower those with aligning missions.

Media