News
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Simon Bryceson's speech at the Commission
Simon Bryceson recently spoke to the European Commission interns. He offered his thoughts on some of the challenges the EU is facing, which lie at the nexus between the European institutions, national governments, businesses, and pressure groups. Watch his speech here. -
The Pharma Industry - Down Tobacco Road
Years ago, the tobacco industry pursued hard power at the expense of soft power, which eventually led to the decline of its influence. Ten years ago, Simon Bryceson predicted that the pharmaceutical industry would follow the same fate, unless it used more soft power. This has now come to pass...Read more... -
How the environment movement lost in the war of public opinion
Why has there been no meaningful action undertaken to combat climate change? Why is it that no effective measure seems to be upcoming? We propose that the reason is that the environment movement simply lost the war of the public opinion on climate change. Read more. -
Save the Fish
The Marine Stewardship Council provides the best opportunity for better protecting Europe’s fish. We propose a short sharp campaign to increase the momentum of European retailer brands committing only to stock MSC certified fish. The campaign remains achievable; it has just become more desirable. Read more... -
How to Make Politics Work for Climate Change
Because of the way politicians perceive the consequences of actions necessary to lower emissions, the prospects for solution to the climate change problem are very poor. We propose a campaign to create a coherent voting block on climate change, to make this issue politically salient. Read more... -
Information to Patients
The debate in the EU about Information to Patients rumbles on. The battle lines have been drawn some time ago. With their stalling tactics, the opposition has successfully prevented progress for a number of years. What lessons can we draw from the situation? Read more... -
Internship with HLC
We currently do not have any open positions, but please keep checking back. We are always looking for exceptional candidates to join the HLC team, so don't hesitate to send in a spontaneous application for us to keep on file. -
Walmart, Tesco and Sustainability
Many companies who sell to Wal-Mart and Tesco have found in the last year that they are facing an increasingly complex set of demands on environmental issues. What is happening? Why have these companies embraced sustainability? Or have they? Read more -
New Website Launch
HLC has launched its new website - we hope you like it! We will be posting more information, thought pieces and updating the content regularly. Please see the Thinking About section to download our analysis of some key issues, and Simon (es)says to see our commentary on current events facing different industries today -
“Mind the Gap” goes nuclear
The gap between political rhetoric and political action is nowhere more obvious than with energy policy. All of the available energy options for Europe have considerable political downside – and as it turns out, nuclear power is no silver bullet either. Read more -
Making Politics Work for Climate Change
Because of the way politicians perceive the consequences of actions necessary to lower emissions, the prospects for solution to the climate change problem are very poor. We propose a campaign to create a coherent voting block on climate change, to make this issue politically salient. Read more... -
Life after Copenhagen II: the Reality Slowly Dawns...
In our previous essay, Life after Copenhagen, we laid out the reasons we believed that Copenhagen would be a failure. On this occasion, it gives us no great pleasure to say “we told you so”...Read more... -
FDR and lobbying…
In Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s words, the importance of communicating messages which resonate with the public in addition to talking to policy elites with long words. Read more…
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EuroFish TV: “TV about fish, for fish, made by fish”
EU Commissioner Damanaki tweeted our first episode of EuroFishTV to over 2000 people this week. There are few policy areas more complex than the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy. Hence, the public rarely pays attention. Here is our effort to make it simple – to make the message travel further. Read more…
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I say oil sands, you say tar sands
On the Comment Visions series, HLC chairman Simon Bryceson discusses Canadian oil/tar sands, Europe’s fuel quality Directive, and the intensifying battle between the energy industry and the environment movement. Simon argues that both parties will invest more into competitive communications on this issue than is currently expected, because neither side can afford to lose. Read more…
