Verified Champions

Climate misinformation spreads rapidly both offline and online, undermining trust in science and weakening support for renewable energy.

Well-funded networks, from fossil fuel interests to organized disinformation campaigns, are producing content designed to go viral, exploiting emotion, identity and doubt. Their content works because it reinforces what many people already suspect: that climate action is costly, unfair and irrelevant to their lives.

At the same time, climate negotiations often feel distant from everyday life. While many people recognise that climate change is serious, technical language and polarised narratives create barriers to engagement, and solutions struggle to resonate locally.

The perception gap these issues cause is the real vulnerability. When climate action feels like someone else’s problem, communities lose confidence in their ability to act, and false narratives gain traction in the absence of culturally relevant, trusted voices.

In response, we designed Verified Champions to: 

 – Bring climate stories into cultural moments people already care about
– Counter climate misinformation online
 – Increase public support for renewable energy
 – Bridge global climate summits/negotiations and local communities 

Our insight: when people see climate solutions as fair, effective and personally beneficial — through the lens of their own culture, community and everyday life — they’re more motivated to support climate action, and more resilient to misinformation.

Rather than direct climate messaging, we empower Champions to naturally integrate climate themes into their existing content pillars. We use a three-pronged approach: Team Verified briefs for key moments, Champion-led content for authentic stories, and strategic collaborations with cultural partners across sports, film, and music.

Verified Champions brings climate storytelling into the cultural moments people are already watching, sharing and celebrating – working alongside organisations including UNFCCC, C40 Cities, TED Countdown, Iklim Festival, Sounds Right, Sail GP, Terra FC and London Marathon Events to embed creators in the right moments.

Champions tell these stories in their own voice and style, connecting climate  to the communities they know best. We support that work with regular content briefs, amplification and moment-specific creative tools –  including custom stickers, interactive games and a dedicated Earth Day filter –  enabling climate messaging to show up where audiences are already engaged. Together, these elements help make renewable energy and climate solutions more interactive, visible and culturally embedded.

Verified Champions launched in Phase 1 across Brazil, Spain and the UAE, producing 178 videos and establishing the programme’s first trusted messenger network on TikTok.

Building on this foundation, Phase 2 expanded the programme to Brazil, Indonesia and the UK. Across these markets, Champions produced 900+ climate videos in 2025, generating 1.5B+ cumulative views, 19M engagements and 6.7M new followers.

A core element of the campaign is connecting climate storytelling with major cultural and community moments audiences are already engaging with. Champions create platform-native content around these events, embedding climate stories and solutions into everyday cultural conversations. Champions receive regular briefs and collaborate with cultural partners and expert stakeholders to ensure content remains accurate, relevant and connected to real-world climate discussions.

A landmark moment in 2025 was COP30 in Belém, where 25 Champions both covered the summit and took part. In collaboration with TED Countdown, they hosted a panel on how Festival Paratins is becoming a stage for climate awareness. With UNIC Rio, they co-hosted a session on creativity and information integrity at the UN-Brazil Pavilion. Champions led hands-on workshops teaching delegates how to tell climate stories online, and produced over 50 videos translating negotiations for their communities — accumulating 55.4 million views in two months.

Brazil – Carnival and national cultural moments, where creators linked climate impacts to local traditions and community resilience.

Indonesia – Ramadan storytelling, integrating climate themes into faith-based narratives and achieving some of the programme’s strongest perception shifts.

United Kingdom – London Marathon, where creators connected climate and renewable energy narratives with one of the country’s most visible sporting events.

Awards: 

 – Verified Champions won Gold at the 2024 Anthem Awards in Global Awareness Campaign category, which recognizes exceptional global programs or initiatives that effectively raise awareness and drive action on sustainability, environmental, and climate change.

 – Verified for Climate received Silver at the 2025 Drum Social Purpose Awards for Sustainability & Climate Action.

Across programme geographies, 79% of surveyed viewers reported increased support for renewable energy after engaging with Champions content, with independent panel testing confirming a 12% uplift in support following exposure to the campaign.

By embedding climate storytelling in cultural moments, the programme also drove strong local learning outcomes. 

 – In Brazil, Carnival content increased audience knowledge of climate solutions by 74%, while creators generated the network’s highest engagement rates (6.6%). 

 – In Indonesia, Ramadan storytelling led to 92% of viewers reporting increased understanding of how climate change affects them personally. 

 – In the UK, 90% of viewers said they learned something new from solutions-focused climate content.

Across geographies, exposure to Champions content also strengthened information resilience, with audiences showing a 23% increase in confidence identifying misinformation and an 80% reduction in climate apathy.

Audience insights were collected through in-platform Instant Forms surveys on TikTok and independent panel research measuring shifts in attitudes before and after exposure to Champions content.