The place of strategic ecological communications in change management (based on the national project “Ecological Well-Being”)

Abstract

Comprehensive improvement of the state of the environment is currently the subject of government decisions, programs and projects in Russia. This affects the interests of various audiences: business, the public, federal and regional influence groups, and hence requires strategic communications aimed at explaining, expanding the number of supporters, uniting efforts, legitimizing the governmental decisions, and changing the behavior of the audiences. The purpose of the study is to analyze the place of strategic environmental communications in the action program for the implementation of state environmental strategies. The author relies on theoretical studies of Russian and foreign authors on this issue. In the practical part, she analyzes communications in the process of forming the national project “Ecological Well-Being”. The results of the conducted study of the media and official resources of state authorities allow to consider several communicative models of behavior: public and non-public. The stage of formation of the national project is accompanied by non-public communication, which creates certain risks when information is released into the public space, since criticism and disagreement with the adoption of relevant decisions may arise from various groups. The author offers a list of possible conflict topics and examines the features of the formation of strategic environmental communications, based on M. Harvell’s matrix.