It has been said that, given the overwhelming evidence, climate change is no longer the problem of scientists. Instead, it is the salesmen who have to do the hard work.

But communicating environmental issues is not easy: too much doom turns people off and humour can be a little too subjective, as 10:10 found out to their detriment, with their controversial No Pressure video.

Nick Christoforou is one of the co-founders of Neo ethical communications and is now the sole director. He moved to Brighton from London in 1991 to attend the University of Sussex and says, “The moment I arrived in Brighton it felt like home. For me it’s always been an open-minded, compassionate and creative hub. That fits perfectly with what Neo is about.”

The agency was set up in 2002 and the nearly ten year-long journey has taught him what people do and don’t listen to. “The serious, preachy approach doesn’t work, it’s as simple as that,” he says. “You can scare people into making an initial change but it doesn’t sustain itself long-term. People just switch off. No one wants to be told how bad things are and people know there is an issue. We don’t need to repeat the same message.”

Neo was created with the aim of working with organisations that make a difference. Nick wanted to get a personal reward out of the work he did and move away from corporate values and traditional business, which didn’t seem to look at social or environmental issues as a priority.

At the time there were only one or two other agencies focusing on similar goals but over the past ten years there have been hundreds springing up. Nick says, “Some of them came about opportunistically on the wave of interest in sustainability but I certainly think, at the same time we were setting up, there were a handful of others who were feeling the same as I was. There was definitely something in the national psyche that triggered things off.”

Since then, Neo has worked with charities and social enterprises, helping them to whip up public interest in their work. Nick says, “You need to engage people, tap into what interests them and make them want to change, demonstrate that other people are making that change. The humorous or proactive approach makes sense because it can go viral – people pass it on and it creates a snowball effect.”

Nick points to a recent campaign Neo worked on for the WWF, encouraging people to lobby their supermarkets to buy a different kind of soy to halt the destruction of the Cerrado, a huge tropical savannah in Brazil. They created an unusual video using hand shadow puppets. Nick says, “It’s much more subtle than, ‘You must go and tell your supermarket this’. It’s appealing to people’s creative side, hopefully having some kind of resonance with them and getting them on board to support the campaign.”

Before long the video had gained 60,000 YouTube views, was picked up by magazines, shown on DVDs and even appeared on Asian TV channels. Most importantly, two supermarkets are currently committed to changing their soy purchasing habits and discussions are in progress with others.

And what of the recent lull in interest in environmental issues?

“It’s going to come back on the agenda in a big way. Any drop-off is temporary. There is a whole raft of up-and- coming social enterprises and businesses and the government is investing in green energy because it’s security for the future. It’s one of the few growing sectors.

“The money will be available again; it will be back on the agenda and I’m very optimistic.”