“Our world is anything but silent. Sound is how the natural world is able to speak to us. It is a language, however, that many of us have long since forgotten and yet its call has never been more urgent.
Never before have we faced such an urgent need to connect hearts with minds and knowledge with action in order to inspire people to value and connect with the natural world and to critically safeguard its future.”
Martyn Stewart
In 2023, 713.4 million people subscribed to music streaming platforms globally. And each year, in the UK and US alone, more than 264 million people attend live music shows. Imagine what could be achieved if we engaged as little as 1% of this community. We would create an incredible movement for change.
Recent surveys tell us that music fans are concerned about climate change and are ready to act. This presents a prime engagement opportunity to mobilize a significant mass to take action that protects nature and fights its greatest threat: a warming planet.
…cue Sounds Right
Sounds Right is a new initiative to recognize the value of nature, prompt conversation and raise funds for conservation through an innovative mechanism, and inspire millions of music fans to take action to protect the natural world. With Sounds Right, NATURE is being registered as an artist on various music streaming platforms – starting with Spotify and Apple Music -, owning rights to its own sounds.
Count Us and Rare are joining the Museum for the United Nations – UN Live as core, founding partners of the campaign, delivered in close partnership with A-List musicians, creatives, nature sound recordists, as well as other environmental, campaigning and global advocacy organizations.
We have identified and developed framing for a behaviorally robust action set of seven actions to underpin the campaign. These actions have been integrated into the user journey to be as frictionless as possible and they will be promoted progressively, starting with an in-app invitation for fans to Donate to further support conservation projects. Other actions, like Cut Food Waste and Dress.
Sustainably, refer fans to carefully curated podcast playlists to help listeners explore the topics more deeply, finding in them education and inspiration to take action beyond their digital experience.
We’ve also developed a framework for evaluating the adoption and impact of the actions across different pre-identified user segments. By tracking and measuring the adoption of these actions, we aim to form a greater understanding of the efficacy of the user journey and how we can develop it further as we evolve and grow the campaign.
Recognizing nature as an artist
Launched last week, on April 18, Sounds Right is kicking off with a 15-track ‘Feat. NATURE’ playlist, which includes tracks by globally renowned artists featuring sounds of the natural world in their hits. Artists include: Mo, Tom Walker, London Grammar, Cosmo Sheldrake, and Louis XI, Bomba Estereo, Brian Eno, Ellie Goulding, Aterciopelados, Los Amigos Invisibles, Blinky Bill and Anuv Jain. The playlist, available to stream at the time of publishing on Spotify and Apple Music, also includes NATURE’s own Ecosystem Sounds, inviting us all to become NATURE’s fans.
By simply listening to a Sounds Right track – pure nature sounds, or A-List hit songs and original productions that feature NATURE – fans and music lovers will directly protect the environment through a portion of royalties being disbursed to high-impact conservation initiatives.
Why should you care?
This recognition of NATURE as an artist acts as an open demonstration of love and support, aimed to inspire fans across the globe to join in appreciating nature and supporting its conservation. What’s more, Sounds Right’s work with artists will also encourage millions of listeners to take further actions to conserve nature and become its fans – from donating money to support nature conservation initiatives, to recording the dawn chorus to support biomonitoring efforts, or adopting nature-friendly everyday behaviors in areas like food, fashion and savings.
NATURE’s music is already out there in the world – we listen to it and appreciate her sounds every day. Sounds Right provides a wonderful opportunity to raise the profile of NATURE as the artist she truly is – one whom human artists can collaborate with and whom fans can enjoy and interact with. This initiative provides a platform to actively reward NATURE for her contribution to our lives – by raising funds via fan donations and track royalties, and by inspiring global action to protect it.
The potential
Sounds Right aims to engage 600 million people across the globe and raise $40 million dollars for nature conservation. Its ultimate aim is to grow beyond streaming platforms into an unstoppable music movement to safeguard nature and our planet. And indeed, the potential is great. With the right backing, Sounds Right could normalize nature conservation by bringing support for it in a scale never seen before, through:
- The production of new artist tracks ft. NATURE, attracting new music streaming platforms, reaching wider fan bases and raising more funds towards nature conservation projects.
- Harnessing the power of live music events to bring concert and festival goers together around shared experiences of music Feat. NATURE, building a greater fan base for NATURE, and strengthening a sense of community under the Sounds Right umbrella.
- Establishing a presence at industry events, awards and through TV and film Increasing industry awareness and trust of Sounds Right to create more campaign opportunities, fan exposure and mainstream cut through.
- Harnessing popular engagement to drive nature-protecting policy around key moments and geographies, like COP30 in Brazil, by tapping into local and regional artists, venues and festivals to give profile to a movement that captures the imagination of leaders and nudges the ambition of their own commitments and action.
To conclude…
Sounds Right is breaking ground on climate and nature campaigning. Its innovative approach, potentially reaching a billion people, is full of promise for nature and the future of our planet. To achieve this, in its first phase, the campaign will focus on testing engagement strategies and gathering data to understand both the types of audience segments engaging and how they are engaging with the campaign. It will also look at how artists are engaging their audiences and the effectiveness of different forms of on-platform promotion in directing audiences to take different sets of nature-protecting action.
Watch this space for our findings and get in touch if you’d like to support this initiative!
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This post is authored by Genevieve Margrett, Campaigns Manager at Count Us In. Get in touch with Genevieve to learn more about Sounds Right and our other campaigns.
Count Us In harnesses the power of popular culture to inspire and engage mainstream audiences to take climate action – driving wider systems change. We reach the moveable middle through their passions and interests. We deliver impactful popular culture campaigns, facilitating unexpected partnerships in sports, music, social media, entertainment and gaming.
Rare is a non-profit focused on inspiring change so people and nature thrive. Rare is part of the Count Us In leadership team. Together, we are working to share data and insights as part of a public good, intended to help anyone who sees themselves as part of the movement to address climate change, the biggest challenge humanity faces.
Sounds Right is an initiative by Museum for the United Nations – UN Live, developed in consultation with the United Nations Department of Global Communications, along with founding partners: Earth Percent, The Listening Planet, VozTerra, Earthrise, Hempel Foundation, Community Arts Network, Dawn Chorus, LD Communications, Dalberg, Axum, Music Declares Emergency, Limbo Music, Count Us In, AKQA, LD Communications and Rare.
Sounds Right is also joining forces with The Nature Conservancy and Wildlife Conservation Society to encourage millions of music fans around the globe to recognise the value of nature and to inspire them to take action.