Our planet is at a crossroads. The truth is that every person on Earth is fundamentally connected to Earth’s biodiversity, but overwhelmingly disconnected to the reality of our impact on it. We connected people everywhere to the global stories and conversations concerning biodiversity. We tapped into the major social networks and search engine APIs and wrote our own algorithm to gather, display and allow people to engage with public discourse on the most pressing biodiversity topics. We planted our #connect2earth lexicon, an open-source wifi connection symbol that allows anyone - from governments to NGO’s to corporates to individuals - to customise and create their own ‘connections’ online and offline. By giving everybody a reason to speak up about why biodiversity matters to them, we are able to gather data to prove an increased awareness. Uniting voices sets us on a clear course to impact global policy makers in 2020.

The odds were not in our favour to collect global public biodiversity conversations in one place. We shipped in 50% of the expected time. Simultaneously, we released and encouraged local adaptations of our open-source toolkit with visual devices and lexicon.

We launched using the Earth Hour ‘moment’, WWF’s global movement on changing climate change. We asked everybody to countdown to the big day and discover relevant conversations on www.connect2earth.org. On March 24th, #connect2earth swept across the globe with #earthhour. Visual adaptations rolled in appearing on web, OOH, print, building projections and in stores. The lexicon expanded to #connect2forests, #connect2rivers, #connect2nature, and more, as we saw supporters posting and joining together on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Refusing to let any story be left untold, we are releasing re-designed toolkits to inspire more connections to be built on the road to 2020.

Earth Hour and #Connect2Earth hit record-breaking celebrations across 188 countries and territories, achieved over 3.5 billion impressions. Conversations swelled on social media with #earthhour trending in 33 countries. #Connect2Earth trended in 9 countries while volume usage accumulated to 1/3 of #earthhour all-time volume!

In March 2018, we collected 2.8m raw biodiversity posts, filtering and scrubbing through in real time to display 84,291 of the most relevant conversations front and center on connect2earth.org.

Awareness translated into impact faster than imagined. Over 250 ambassadors, leaders, and figures around the world emphasised the importance of biodiversity. President of France Emmanuel Macron voiced #Connect2Earth in a special message for Earth Hour. In his video statement for Earth Hour, UN Secretary-General António Guterres reiterated the need for people to work together to build a sustainable future for all. We’re not stopping here. Policy makers need to get ready. The pressure for 2020 is now on.