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Description
It is a promotional and educational project consisting of several follow-up communication activities. These are: publication and distribution of press releases, shooting and broadcasting of 4 TV shows, creation and distribution of popular science publications, creation of strategic material, implementation of a round table with journalists, creation of a database of journalists, implementation of a range of courses for heaters and plumbers, creation and promotion of websites with project outputs, on-line calculator and on-line comparator, promotion of these activities on social networks, promotional campaign consisting of PR articles, native advertisements and banners on seznam.cz, public opinion research.
The target group is wide, consisting of home and building owners, people interested in heating and ecology, people operating boilers for replacement, the professional public (heaters, plumbers, energy specialists, planners, architects), fuel and energy producers and distributors, journalists , educational institutions, lay and professional public, small and medium entrepreneurs, industrial enterprises, companies and sole traders.
The area of focus is to reduce the negative impact of human activity on air quality, namely to teach a wide target group to heat better, use quality fuel, mitigate the negative effects of local heating on air quality, speed up replacement of non-compliant boilers, provide instructions and tools on how to calculate new heating costs. What will be the savings, how to use the grant, where to find experts and be inspired by good examples from practice.
The expected output will be extensive and visible support for ecological local heating with the aim of increasing air quality thanks to a campaign that will address min. 1 million people.
Summary of project results
Although air quality in the Czech countryside is generally better than in urban areas, rural areas still face several major challenges. One of these is the burning of solid fuels such as wood or coal for heating. This practice particularly affects older households in rural areas. The burning of unsuitable solid fuels in old inefficient furnaces leads to the release of large amounts of pollutants and dust particles into the air, which has a direct negative impact on the environment in the area as well as on the health of the local inhabitants. The problem of improper heating thus reminds us of the need to make constant efforts to mitigate these negative impacts.
In Czech Pellet Cluster, which associates companies operating in the field of biomass heating, we have therefore prepared an awareness-raising and educational project. Our aim was to reach a wide group of laymen as well as experts, especially among groups of home and building owners, professionals (heating engineers, plumbers, energy specialists and others), fuel producers and distributors. We used a large online information campaign to communicate to the target group. We also filmed and broadcast four programmes on ecological heating on TV Prima. Last but not least, we published ten commercial articles in national periodicals and distributed a popular educational publication prepared by us during September 2022. In the communication activities described above, we focused primarily on reducing the negative impact of human activity on air quality, specifically teaching a wide target group how to heat better, use quality fuel, how to speed up the replacement of substandard furnaces and what savings they will bring, where to find experts and be inspired by good examples from practice.
Through the activities of the project, we managed to reach a really large number of people. Our original goal of reaching a minimum of 1,000,000 people was far exceeded. Views on Deník.cz and Seznam.cz websites totaled over 12 million, and our TV programmes were seen by over 1.5 million viewers on TV Prima. This campaign has undoubtedly expanded public awareness of the possibilities of environmentally friendly heating of buildings using biomass, increased the motivation of building owners and operators to switch to this method of heating and presented its main advantages. In addition, we successfully trained a total of 140 professionals, mainly heating engineers.
We will continue to use the experience gained from this project in the preparation of further communication campaigns and trainings.