The Natural History Museum in London has preserved ancient life and earth specimens for decades. In 2020, with the urgent reality of the climate crisis, the Musem initiated the “Our Broken Planet: How We Got Here and Ways to Fix It” (OBP) program involving its internal researchers and civil society organizations, to address the state of the planet and inspire solutions looking at the present and into the future.
The program was designed as a multimedia hub – including a physical exhibition, online events, articles and films – for educating, connecting and empowering people to take action.
The OBP exhibition was an on-site journey where visitors were confronted with unusual scenarios and were offered a set of choices and actions to take. Daily habits and objects were displayed and linked to intriguing artefacts – like the fictional burger wrapper discarded beside the skull of an extinct cattle species. Visitors could also play with an interactive recipe builder where they shared their ‘perfect’ menu with planet-friendly food options which brought awareness around food systems, consumption, scarcity and sustainability. The experience concluded with a creative area for brainstorming new ideas where visitors shared their comments, emotions and solutions for others to read.
The OBP online events enhance discussions and reach broad audiences by tapping into climate and biodiversity data and facts and showcasing pioneering solutions worldwide – from farmers, indigenous leaders, NGOs, policymakers, entrepreneurs, industry experts and young activists.
Over 826,000 people have engaged with the OBP activities, including at the Conference of Parties (COP)26 in Glasgow, and a national program is underway to produce localized adaptations to be rolled out across the United Kingdom. The program will further scale up by including more marginalized perspectives and will promote campaigns to inspire people to be more conscious about climate action.
The ‘Our Broken Planet’ program was a finalist in the Inspire Category of the 2022 UN SDG Action Awards, for flipping the script and demonstrating impact on shifting behavior for the SDGs – in this case, particularly on Goals 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production) and 13 (Climate Action).