Read on for a handpicked selection of the good, the one to watch, and the one to read in the world of social impact communications. This week, we’re highlighting Lloyds of London, Unilever, and LSL.

| NAILED IT: Lloyds will drop fossil fuel insurance by 2030 

Insure Our Future scored a major win last week with the news that the world’s largest insurance marketplace, Lloyds of London, will end fossil fuel insurance by 2030. They’ll end insurance for new coal-fired power plants, coal mines, oil sands and Arctic energy exploration by 2022. While there is still room for improvement, with Lloyds responsible for 40% of global energy insurance it’s a step in the right direction towards ending the use of fossil fuels.

Insurance companies across Europe are estimated to have around $600 billion invested in fossil fuels. They make risky fossil fuel projects viable for investors and shield them from potentially huge losses. Without insurance, new projects will become just too risky to go ahead. 

Insure Our Future’s months of campaigning, including a high-profile public protest outside the Lloyds office and targeted social media campaigning aimed at Lloyds employees, has had an impressive impact. Until the announcement, Lloyds had remained the only European insurer to continue underwriting new coal projects. Now, insurance for new coal projects ends in just a year’s time, with a full fossil fuel phase out by the end of the decade. 

Shape History supported the Insure Our Future campaign with a digital brandalism campaign which built on months of digital and offline campaigning. We created a visual identity which took Lloyd’s of London’s own brand and distorted it, using their own voice to hold them to account. We’re incredibly proud to have been part of their campaign! 

| ONE TO WATCH: Unilever restarts Facebook advertising

This July, the #StopHateForProfit campaign to stop advertising on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram burst onto the social media scene whilst we were glued to our newsfeeds like never before. 

In the midst of heightened disinformation and division surrounding the Black Lives Matter protests, major brands including Coca Cola, Starbucks and Unilever paused their advertising activity in support of the campaign.

Five months on, Unilever, which owns over 400 brands around the world including Ben and Jerrys, Dove and Persil, has announced it will be returning in January 2021. The company noted Facebook, Instagram and Twitter’s progress in managing harmful content, independent auditing, and developing advertiser controls.

The campaign’s impact is clear. In October, Facebook started banning pages and groups linked to the conspiracy group QAnon, and on Twitter, multiple posts by Donald Trump and his followers are now hidden or carrying disclaimers if they contain disinformation.  

Let’s hope these efforts continue in earnest at a time when the anti-vaccine movement has the potential to do real damage to world health. 

| ONE TO READ: LSL launches major sexual health report

Our joint research with the Love Sex Life LSL partnership about transforming sexual and reproductive health for #BAME communities in Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham launches today. Read it here!

The COVID-19 pandemic made it clearer than ever that there is an urgent need to address inequalities that are at odds with good sexual health for many BAME people in Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham.  

BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) people make up 44% of Lewisham’s population, 44% of Lambeth’s and 47% of Southwark’s. 

The LSL Sexual and Reproductive Health Strategy 2019-24  highlights that LSL has some of the greatest sexual health challenges in England, including high rates of HIV, STIs, emergency contraception use and termination of pregnancy. 

The report explores three core themes that arose from our research: the need for safe spaces; the need to counter stigma and improve sexual and reproductive health awareness; and creating culturally sensitive and reproductive health systems and services. The report makes a series of recommendations to improve the sexual and reproductive health outcomes of the various BAME communities within the London boroughs of Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham (LSL).