WAVES Framework

We were commissioned by the We are Ocean collective to design & produce a communication framework to help increase ocean literacy. The question that kicked off our work was - How might we talk about the ocean in ways that help us deepen our connection to it ?

After reviewing 16 ocean literacy reports, 6 nature connection reports and 7 communication toolkits, our biggest takeaway was that most of the reports focused on ‘what’ should be communicated as opposed to ‘how’ we should be communicating. We explored the more ‘heart focused’ approaches to connecting people to ocean, and found five common threads that form the basis of our approach.

We ran workshops with the UK We are Ocean collective, and also a US cohort, to test out the framework, ensure it was relevant & useful to all parties - and then launched WAVES at the WAO Summit in January 2021. Since then we’ve gone on to run WAVES workshops & trainings for University of Exeter, University of Bath, University of Bristol, SeaScapes (Durham County Council) & Marine Conservation Society.