Hear how the Pembina Institute has built trust and reputation through the media over the course of their long history.
The idea of clean energy is nothing new — the Pembina Institute has been at the centre of the conversation around the energy transition in Canada since the 1980s.
In this episode of Ampersand we sit down with Laurence Miall, Pembina Institute’s communications manager. He works to get the word out about Pembina’s policy work dedicated to reducing emissions in Canada's communities.
Working at an established organization doesn’t make it any easier to go viral though, and we touch on the current challenges Pembina faces to break through bias in the media and ensure its research and analysis reaches policymakers, business leaders and the wider public.
This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email media@emdashagency.ca with any questions.
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Caitlin Kealey: Welcome to Ampersand, the podcast helping good people be heard and comms people be better. I'm Caitlin Kealey, the CEO of Emdash.
And I'm Megana Ramaswami, senior strategist at Emdash. On this episode, I sat down with Laurence Miall who is the Pembina Institute's communications manager.
Megana Ramaswami:
Pembina does such great work on issues like emissions reductions and clean energy.
And also they've been around forever.
Caitlin Kealey: Yeah, we totally got into that and talked about how Pembina has built trust and reputation through media over the course of their history, which is quite a long history. It's a great listen for folks at established organizations who are working on complex communications issues, but having challenges getting their story into traditional media outlets.
Megana Ramaswami: That definitely sounds like an issue that a lot of folks could relate to. So let's get into it.
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Caitlin Kealey: Thanks so much for joining me, Laurence. It's nice to see your face. It's been a very long time and now you're coming to us straight from Edmonton, Alberta. Um, so we like to start our podcast off with an icebreaker. Um, so I'm wondering if you can share a memory from your first computer or early days on the internet.
It's how we carbon date people these days.
Laurence Miall: Yeah, that's a great icebreaker. I, uh, my earliest and maybe the most memorable internet memory, um, I'm going with the internet memory for my answer here is, um, my dad actually built his own website for his academic work, and it went online in October, on October 12th, 1995.
Um, and the site still is there. Um, so, you know, I remember him talking a lot about the internet at that point. You know, he's not the, he doesn't fit the profile, the standard profile of the kind of person you expect to go build his own website. He was an English literature professor. Um, but, um, but it was a great place to showcase a lot of his research, and, you know, I still find it a good place to find certain things related to English literature, so it's remarkable to think of this thing having been there since 1995, still going strong, and still relevant as ever.
Um, yeah, I really love that.
Caitlin Kealey: I love that. That's amazing. Um, when we started brainstorming a question that would work, it was kind of one that we were like, everybody has a first memory. And it sounds like your dad was like an early, early, early adopter of tech, which is cool. Um, does, is that sort of how you got started in communications?
Laurence Miall: Well, I definitely think that, um, you know, having a dad who's interested in the internet, um, and being surrounded by books, I mean, those two things kind of went together, um, in our household. Uh, I definitely, when I was, you know, back in 1995, I don't think I would have even known about communications as a career, um, but I did definitely see how important the internet was.
And that was not just a place for, you know “computer people” but for everybody, right. Cause, cause my dad was there and he didn't kind of fit that, um, that sort of stereotype. So, um, I was, uh, yeah, quite, quite inspired by that in the early years. And in fact, I think that a lot of my lurking around chat rooms early on was actually to talk about literature, which is something I love and, uh, the internet was great for that.
Caitlin Kealey: I love nerds and you are definitely proving to be a nerd.
Laurence Miall: Thank you.
Caitlin Kealey: Um, speaking of being nerdy, what makes you excited about doing comms for, for, for Pembina? Like, what is it that like gets you up in the morning?
Laurence Miall: Well, the Pembina Institute, I, I'm trying to not to be hyperbolic here when I say this, but it's probably the most trusted organization that I've ever worked for, and I say that because they're obviously people who have different positions on issues than we do.
Um, but I think that we are well respected in Canada and that the information that we put out, people know that it's going to be rigorous, well researched, we're driven by the evidence. And so it's, it's exciting because when you've developed, when you've taken 40 years to develop that kind of trustworthy factor, um, you know, people come to you and you're in demand.
Um, and that's definitely what I've found since joining the Pembina Institute well over a year ago now, is that there are a lot of reporters who are interested, um, not in just the information that we, that we put out, the reports, but also to use the parlance of our times, our take on whatever is the big news story of the day, um, that touches on, you know, energy issues.
Um, we've got a really strong media relations game, and it's fast paced, it's dynamic, and we're really, uh, so well placed to speak to issues that really matter to Canadians, um, all across the country.
Caitlin Kealey: Can you speak a bit to how the trust has been built? Because that's such an important thing, and I don't know that all organizations and comms people get it right, because it's such a, it's a challenging thing to do.
Laurence Miall: Yeah, that's a great question. Um, I think that, the full title of Pembina, and few people I think even know this, it's the, the Pembina Institute for Appropriate Development, and you know, comes out of Drayton Valley, Alberta, and it's a response to, you know, uh, an industrial accident, um, and, you know, there were toxic fumes being released into the local environment for quite a while.
And the grassroots movement to hold industry accountable, um, around that accident is sort of in the DNA of Pembina, like, like, that's what we're here to do, is to hold industry accountable. Um, and that comes with, um, a laser-like focus on the implications of any kind of industrial development that we're talking about.
Um, you know, I think the focus, it it changes over, over the years. And of course, one of the biggest changes in focus has been to go from, you know, Drayton Valley, Alberta to, you know, now our headquarters is Calgary. Um, we all have a very strong national focus ‘cause we have offices in Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver, Edmonton —where I am.
So even though the different issues change, um, You know, year by year, decade by decade, there has been a real focus on accountability, and I think that that resonates with people, right? Like, I think nobody would get up in the morning and say, I'd love it if industry were not accountable to Canadians.
Nobody wants that. We want industry to be accountable to Canadians. Um, and so then, Building on that, there are a whole lot of other things, um, that we need to produce evidence and reports about, which is, um, you know, as we were discussing right, right before getting into the interview, you know, um, buildings, the transportation system, what will, what will be the place of workers in the future?
I think people also expect governments to be accountable around those things because, you know, buildings is where we spend huge amounts of our time. We want them to be safe. We want them to be low emitting. We want our transportation networks to be safe and low emitting as well. That's clearly the best thing for the future.
Um, and all of the systems that we rely on require a skilled, uh, competent workforce to make them, to make them kind of deliver the, the standard of living that, you know, we've, a lot of us, have become accustomed to. So I think trust is a connecting thread that comes from that accountability that we, that we advocate for consistently.
Caitlin Kealey: That's really interesting. I will sheepishly admit that I did not know the full name and I did not know that history. So that's fascinating. And it really, I think it grounds the conversation even more because I now understand sort of the thrust of these things. Um, you talked a bit about the local meets national role of the organization.
Um, what are some of the considerations? Uh, when you're communicating about emission reductions for different communities. I mean, the way you talk to Albertans is probably different than how you talk to folks from BC, so how does Pembina kind of thread that needle? Because I imagine they are very different messages.
Laurence Miall: Yeah, I think it has multiple levels. I mean, you know, I'll preface everything I'm about to say with the obvious fact that Canada is a really complex place and it has multiple levels of government. Um, you know, when you are talking about issues at the federal level versus for a particular First Nation that may be living downstream of the effects of some kind of industrial development, you're talking about a wholly, wholly different sets of concerns.
Um, we, we are aware that we are developing strengths in the places where we are currently operating. So, um, we have, obviously have an Alberta based strengths because we have two offices here and we've, we've been in Alberta from the very beginning. Um, We have real strength in BC and On- Ontario. I mean, I could, I could keep speaking also to the issues that we focus on, but I think to the substance of your question, like, how, how do you build that trust?
How do you communicate to audiences and kind of like, meet them where they are? I mean, for us, it's still heavily driven by the evidence, right? And if you're talking in Alberta, you are sort of inevitably going to spend a lot of time talking about the oil and gas industry. Because it's the number one emitting, uh, sector in Alberta and, um, Alberta is obviously responsible for, you know, it's, it's, I don't have the numbers right in front of me.
I think it's 38 percent of emissions, uh, in Canada overall. So it's pretty significant. So that becomes a big part of the conversation. But I think what's interesting about the climate change conversation and the energy transition that is, uh, you know, underway, um, not just in Canada, but but obviously internationally is that every province, every place, every jurisdiction, every community is starting from a different baseline.
So when we're talking to people in British Columbia, um, you know, the transportation network is something that ends up, you know, taking up a lot of the conversation because that's a very high emitting sector of British Columbia. We talk a lot about about buildings. Um, we talk about the need for, um, you know, the many remote communities that there are in British Columbia to, you know, ideally find pathways to to get off diesel.
Um, you know, there's that it really is a matter of, of looking at high emitting sectors and tailoring the message, um, to people who are invested, um, in, in those sectors and are going to live through the change that we know either is already underway, or it's a change that's that's going to have to happen in, in the near future.
And I think that when people see us communicating in a way that's deeply relevant to them as say, a Vancouver resident, you know, that makes sense to them, and they understand we don't, we don't have a one size fits all communication strategy. We have multiple communication strategies scaffolded, um, around obviously our focus on, on Canada playing its part, uh, in the international, um, ecosystem.
Caitlin Kealey: Thanks. That's interesting. Um, I mean, when we're talking about things like emissions and climate change, those are complex topics and can, you know, you can get lost in the weeds and get confused because it's very specific. How do you balance communicating with clarity when it's something that's so complex?
And I think it's even more important in the era of information and disinformation that we're seeing more and more very divided camps.
Laurence Miall: Yeah, that's a great question because obviously climate change is an enormously complex topic in and of itself. Um, it touches on pretty much everything that we, that we do in our lives.
Um, and there's a lot of technical information behind it. Just measuring emissions and, you know, getting, sharing data about where different sectors are, uh, in terms of their emissions and, you know, there are a lot of, um, statistics that drive this, you know, like you want a certain percentage of emissions reductions by a certain date in the future, you know, governments, especially the federal government, you know, have been, um, sending various milestones.
We want to achieve these reductions by 2035, these by 2050. We know everything sort of scaffolds up to the 2050 timeline. And I do think that that the level of detail that you have to go into to deliver, like, a credible report to government, and that's the kind of thing that we do, right? Whether it be the federal government or a provincial government, municipal government, like, we do have to provide pretty technical and detailed briefings to be relevant in the policymaking process.
Um, so I would say, similar to how we, we, in the previous question, we talked about these different audiences at the provincial level, or at a First nation level, the different kinds of communications products that we're putting out have different levels of complexity.
And so really good media release should be accessible, really, for any audience, uh, even if what we're doing is promoting a report that is ultimately quite technical and is intended for, uh, mainly policymakers.
I think that a really skilled communications team is quite comfortable operating at multiple levels of complexity, and then is always asking the questions of the analysts, like, “Make this make sense. Make this relevant.” Like, tell me why this matters. Uh, and that I think brings the clarity, uh, to people when they understand that, um, you know, if we were advocating for the adoption of heat pump technology, you know, the reason we provide numbers is so that we can quantify the kind of impact that that is going to happen, whether it's an impact on emissions or having an impact on affordability.
Right. Uh, and we have a lot of success, uh, celebrating, you know, wind and solar because they've become the most– among the most inexpensive forms of energy available to us. And I think that the, you know, marrying the complexity of the numbers and the technical details with real, you know, data around reducing utility bills and, you know, in terms of the renewable energy industries impact here on Alberta, which is a province I know the best, you know, raising municipal tax revenue, you know, I think people feel that, um, and, and they understand how important that is.
And so those things together, technical plus impact, that's, I think how you stay clear and that's how you stay relevant.
Caitlin Kealey: Yeah. And it's always the, “why should I care?” Like what's in it for me? I mean, as, as much as we like to think that everybody's altruistic, they're not. So, uh, to a certain extent, it's definitely meeting them where they're at with information that is helpful to them.
Laurence Miall: That's such an interesting point. I mean, you mentioned altruism and I, I think that in a sense, like the messaging that we have at Pembina, I can't speak to what we would have done 10, 20 years ago in any great detail. But you know, what I'm seeing now is that you don't, you shouldn't really actually need to appeal to people's altruism to get them excited about the energy transition.
You actually can make a very credible argument that, um, there are real world benefits to people as residents of their community, um, there are real economic benefits to the larger community. There are jobs that can be produced. Um, yeah, whether you view those, those benefits as removal of a harm, like here's what we need to do to make sure that the air is breathable or the, the more positive benefits of, you know, you could, your kids could have a terrific career as an engineer in the renewable industry, right?
Those are those are really positive arguments to be putting out there. And you don't– you know, there will be people who will always be interested in climate change for the altruistic reasons, because it makes them feel good about doing good, but, um, for everybody else, you know, when we're not preaching to the choir, we need to sell them on the benefits.
Caitlin Kealey: Yeah, the economic argument. Um, we've talked, you've, you've alluded to the importance of media a few times so far. Um, what are some of the challenges that you face when it comes to media relations in Pembina?
Laurence Miall: Well, I'll start with the biggest one, which I think is probably one that anybody, any environmental organization would mention is that there's a difference of scale, uh, in terms of, um, the number of people that we have and the amount of money that we have to do the job that we do.
We are, uh, out-resourced many, many, many times over by industry and by governments. So, so that's a big one because it means you have to be disciplined and you have to pick your issues because you're not going to be able to fight the fight on all of them all at the same time. It also means there's some collaboration obviously needed in the, in the environmental sector that like, we're not going to be doing that, doing the heavy lifting on, uh, hydro energy in Quebec as an issue.
Cause that's not, you know, that's not where we have a strength. We don't have an office in Montreal or Quebec city. So, you know, we defer to Équité to do what they do in Quebec. Um, I would say the bigger challenge that, you know, and now I'm very much wearing my perspective as working on the side of Pembina that focuses on the demand side of energy.
So this is buildings. This is transportation. This is the workforce that makes, you know, the systems that we rely on possible.
Traditionally, the media get really excited about oil and gas. They get really excited about electricity generation. There are all sorts of stories that we'll see from like just the last year where tons of reporters are there to report on those issues. Um, where the media does less well is on any kind of story that's solutions oriented.
Um, and I've seen this for a long time, not just at Pembina. So if you're talking about retrofitting a building, like a deep energy retrofit, um, that is going to make it possible to have better health for the tenants of that building, that's going to reduce emissions, that's going to reduce utility costs, that's going to make it safer, uh, in the event of wildfires.
All of that, curiously, the media are less good at focusing on everything that can be done. Around the issue of retrofitting buildings, retrofitting buildings is a solution, right? And so when we come out with framing around the story that solutions focused, uh, I think the media, um, struggles more to follow that because it doesn't fit into the kind of conflict based frames that they’re used to.
It also doesn't follow the partisan lens that they divide Canadians up into. And I think there's no issue that, uh, is more subject to this relative lack of interest from the media than when we frame the opportunities of the energy transition for workers, you know, most adult Canadians identify as workers, but I would argue most media corporations do not communicate with Canadians as workers.
And it's a big blind spot. I think they communicate with us, like consumers, taxpayers, voters. But they don't communicate with us as workers. And workers have a big vested interest in the energy transition. They have a vested interest in the economy, obviously being good and producing good jobs that they can have now and into the future.
But there is also a critical need for training for skills development and planning on behalf of the government. Um, we don't want to be blindsided by global changes in energy consumption and energy demand. And so if governments are not planning in a responsible way for the future, uh, in collaboration with workers, we really risk, you know, uh, losing a lot of opportunities and running, you know, real risks for Canada's workforce.
So, uh, I've seen that being a blind spot from the media. And I think for a communications person, it means you need to be more creative in terms of how you get your message out. And I think it also means you can't rely 100 percent on the media to carry that message. You need to do a lot more of the communicating yourself.
So I hope that we continue to do that to do that. I'd like us to do even more of it. It's a big part of why I get up in the morning is to think of creative ways to get harder to sell messages like that out there. Because I think once you break through that reticence of the media to talk about workers as workers, once you break through to the other side, people are totally receptive to those messages because people identify as workers.
That's that's the modern day reality.
Caitlin Kealey: My brain is like now spinning in like a thousand different– I'm like, so, you know, as a communicator, especially working with the media, it's your job to make it sexy to the media, right? So, uh, if they don't want to talk about workers, how else can you spin it? But also you're right.
It does seem, like, a bit of a, I can name a couple of reporters that I think are doing a good job of representing workers, but there's not — you're right — there's not a lot of them. Um, you know, the working class, even though we mostly are, uh, definitely, uh, don't hold sway or pay the bills. Right? We do, but not on a grand scale for, you know, the newspaper conglomerates as we would like to talk about them.
Um, that being said, so you're talking about the importance of not just relying on media, which is, you know, most communication strategies will tell you not to just try one approach. So is there something that you've done in the last year at Pembina that you're specifically proud of like, is there a campaign or a new, a new, shiny comms tool that you've used that you'd like to talk about?
Laurence Miall: Um, well, I think the big one is that we, we relaunched our website and I, that's obviously something all organizations every now and then they'll come along and realize that the website has become kind of a bit old looking, the branding needs to be revisited, maybe the functionality is not what it should be.
And so that's like, I would say the biggest one, um, that we did over the last year and it would have gone live about three months ago. I, I consider it to be, you know, obviously I'm biased because I work at the Pembina Institute, but I think it's one of the most useful websites for anyone who's interested in the energy transition, because if you Google certain things, um, if you're interested in carbon capture and storage, if you are interested in, um, you know, unfunded liabilities in Alberta, any number of things.
I could just keep doing this all day as a party game, right? Spit out certain search terms and let's put them into Google and see where Pembina ends up in the search rankings. I think you'll find a lot, you know, because of the long history that we've had of working on particular issues, you will always find Pembina, um, producing a lot of the most high quality and top results.
Um, and then, the other reason I mentioned the website is, is it kind of becomes the hub of everything else that we're going to be doing, right? So that is where we drive people to for social media primarily. Um, we did a video about a month ago, um, about the health benefits of retrofits and the importance of, of retrofits.
And I think that that's a really interesting, um, experiment for us because there is a sort of emotional components to that. Like, people live and work in homes, um, they mean a lot to us. And Pembina has often been quite, quite technical and coming forward with the facts. And so the extent to which you use a medium like video, which often will have more of a sort of emotional resonance, that's, I think, a little bit new for us, but I'm, I'm proud that we tried that.
Um, you know, and this is a podcast recording, obviously, it's far from the first podcast recording that Pembina folks have been engaged in, so that's not really, you know, uh, an overt strategy of our own, but we're always interested in positioning our experts on podcasts, because, again, like, not, not to bash the traditional media again, because they're doing a fantastic job on covering the issues that they, that they have strength in. But podcasts often give experts more time and space to go in depth on the issues.
And I do think that Canadians appreciate that. You know, we're told that no one, no one has the attention span of more than a minute to pay attention to a soundbite. And obviously, if you know you're preparing for a, you know, an interview that's going to be a three minute segment on CBC National, you're going to try and want it to deliver the soundbite.
That's, that's what you do. But, um, I think it's also important that our experts be able to speak at length clearly about the complex issues that they work on and the podcast format is terrific for that. So, um, we're always happy to get on credible, reputable podcasts and talk about our research.
Caitlin Kealey: Yeah, yeah, we've been doing a pod— this is our second season, and I think it's been really fun to get to, you know, chat with, with people that we respect and talk about the issues that we deal with every day. And, you know, that the people we work with deal with every day.
Speaking of the people we work with, if you had one piece of advice for someone in our field, do you have a favorite piece of advice that you give?
Laurence Miall: Uh, I got a very simple answer to this one, and it's, uh, it's two pieces of advice. But we could, you know, it's effectively like one piece.
Caitlin Kealey: I was like, I think you're cheating.
Laurence Miall: I'm cheating. I wrote it down as I wanted to be prepared for this one. Stay, stay positive and stay busy. And I say that because this is a really hard space to work in.
And I mean that from two, from two lenses: the communication space is a difficult one to work in because things are always changing and there is a whole bunch of elements that are out of our control as communicators. So we need to sort of ride, ride the waves there. Uh, and if, you know, if we get zero pickup on a media story that we put out, then, you know, we can't go home and cry.
We have to pick ourselves back up in the morning and get on with it. Because that just happens, right? There are some things that don't get pickup. Uh, we don't need to endlessly ruminate on the reasons why they didn't work. We just need to go, go try again. Um, but the other space of course is energy. And this is the space that Pembina specifically is in.
And it's, um, you know, anyone who's been paying close attention to the news over the last year or two has probably noticed that, you know, it's becoming challenging to talk about climate change, to say the least. Um, there are a whole lot of issues that are hitting Canadians really hard, like the housing crisis, affordability, cost of living, all of those things.
Um, so for us, the lesson in that challenge is that climate issues are affordability issues. Climate issues are economic issues. There is no reason to see these things at odds with each other. You know, embracing the challenge of climate change will not mean massive job loss, you know, quite the opposite.
It means huge potential in, in untapped sectors. Um, you know, the positivity that's required to work in the energy space, the climate change space, I think, steals you for any kind of setback that you're inevitably going to confront because the results don't, you know, always go the way that you want.
Um, so, you know, if one thing, and this is why the corollary of the advice stay positive is to stay busy, right? Like if one thing doesn't work out, move on to the next thing. Of course, you're going to do some analysis about why any particular campaign may have underperformed, but you know, the most important thing is to, is to keep on going, uh, learn from, learn from the setbacks, uh, refine your messaging and your strategy accordingly and keep on going because this is like a generational, uh, challenge that's not going away anytime, so there's no need for us to ever stop trying.
Caitlin Kealey: Well, that's it for this week's episode of Ampersand. Thanks for joining us.
For more comms and design tips, sign up for our newsletter at emdashagency.ca and follow us on your favorite podcasting app so that you don't miss our next episode. Ampersand is hosted by Megana Ramaswami and me, Caitlin Kealey, and it's produced by Elio Peterson. This podcast is a project of Emdash, the small agency focused on big impact helping progressives be heard.