It’s that highly anticipated time of year again, the start of stone crab season—and it got us at The M Network thinking. Yes, mostly about delicious stone crab claws—but also about the vulnerable ecosystem that produces them. You see climate change has been on our minds recently. Miami has had one of the hottest summers on record this year and some very bad hurricane seasons, one of which almost had catastrophic effects on the stone crab economy.
But climate change doesn’t just pose an existential threat to our dinner, it poses a threat to all of us. That is why this year The M Network decided to host their annual My Miami Story at Joe’s Stone Crab on the topic of climate change. We invited our good friends and experts on the subject, Kate Stein and Mario Ariza to join us over dinner and share some insights with us. As a branding agency, we were interested in ways we could seamlessly incorporate response, adaptation, and mitigation into clients’ brand positioning.
Some may assume that branding is simply about how clients market themselves. But, if we do our job right, branding should trickle down into all decision-making, even how organizations talk about and act on existential issues like climate change. In the chaos of every day, and among so many other urgent issues, rising seas and hot summers can seem secondary—but they’re not. Abnormally destructive hurricane seasons that displace families and warming oceans affecting local fish populations have shown us otherwise. Whatever the issue is—affordable housing, infrastructure, food, homelessness, health, philanthropy or even the arts, all of our clients deal with issues that are impacted by it. We also believe that all of our clients have the power to make an impact.
Hyperlocal adaptation projects can include removing litter clogging up drains in your neighborhood, providing shade at your local bus stop, or installing AC units in public housing. There are everyday actions organizations can work toward in our communities to improve how we deal with the short-term effects of climate change that work with their brand. However, we understand that the topic of climate change is often wrought with political uncertainty. Some may think, “while we can’t afford to do nothing, we must be tactful in our response.” So how do we move forward in a way that is seamless and impactful without being divisive or opportunistic?
To that question, we had no clear answer. But as rising seas become an increasingly visible and unavoidable phenomenon in South Florida (e.g. king tide flooding), more and more organizations are working to make solutions actionable, practical, and inclusive. While there is still a very natural anxiety that comes with talking about an issue of global scale and high political gravitas, there is also a lot of hope. Miami has always been a resilient community.
Our conversation took us to many places—some of them sillier than others—and we came up with a few ideas like direct to consumer adaptation projects, air sealing your home or bubble houses (see podcast for more details). One thing is true for all of us at the table: we will be watching closely to see what Miami will do in the next few years.
To hear more about adaptation efforts, climate change policy, and other ways our city is uniquely impacted by climate change, listen to our podcast on sea-level rise.
