Entertainment Partnerships

NRDC and Ad Council launched Save The Food, a national public service campaign to raise awareness and combat consumer food waste. Digital agency Publicis.Sapient developed PSAs, out-of-home print and web advertising, and digital tools—which have garnered more than $111 million in donated media.

NRDC collaborates with ATTN: to create celebrity-hosted videos about the environment, including Larry David on climate deniers and Troian Bellisario decrying Scott Pruitt.

NRDC activates annually at Bonnaroo to empower its socially conscious attendees to make change. In addition to engaging thousands of activists digitally and at our booth, we collaborated with artists such as BENEE, Roddy Ricch, Lissie, The National, and Kacey Musgraves and led panels, contests, and partnerships throughout the festival.

In 2008, NRDC helped to establish the Broadway Green Alliance—which educates, motivates, and inspires the theater community and its patrons to implement eco-intelligent practices—and continues to act as an advisor for the group.

In 2019, NRDC hosted a panel discussion in the Brooklyn Book Festival to discuss how storytelling can challenge society's response to climate change. Esteemed panelists included novelist Pitchaya Sudbanthad, artist Eve Mosher, New Yorker journalist Carolyn Kormann, NRDC expert Robert Moore, and Guernica deputy publisher Amy Brady.

NRDC works with Brut Media to create co-branded videos on key environmental issues that reach millennial and gen-z audiences around the world, including a series on environmental racism, as well as videos on highway segregation, toxic forever chemicals called PFAS, the energy crisis tied to the war in Ukraine, and more. 

We teamed up with comedian Pete Davidson and CrowdRise by GoFundMe to raise awareness about NRDC via an online fundraising sweepstakes to win two tickets to a Saturday Night Live taping in New York and the VIP after-party.

As the featured partner of eBay for Charity’s Earth Month 2018, NRDC engaged eBay’s audience of more than 100 million with a chance to bid on a trip to Yellowstone National Park and donated items from celebrities such as Leonardo DiCaprio and Sarah Silverman.

As a special exhibitions partner at EXPO CHICAGO, NRDC participates in the leading international art fair that attracts 40,000-plus visitors annually. Through this innovative platform, young and diverse audiences learn about NRDC’s work through the lens of contemporary art and are mobilized to take action.

NRDC has worked with Funny Or Die to create action-driven campaigns, including a PSA featuring Questlove on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s rollbacks and a voter turnout video featuring Billy Eichner, Randall Park, Kumail Nanjiani, Darren Criss and Mandy Moore.

As a theme partner for the 2021-2022 Student Challenge, NRDC encouraged students to create “Sustainable Cities” themed games that incorporated creative climate solutions as part of the national game design program and competition.

Leveraging GIPHY's platform, NRDC creates trending GIPHY stories as well as GIFs and stickers that power creativity on the biggest social sites and messaging apps and publishers in the world. Through the creative expression of pop culture moments, infotainment and news, audiences are mobilized to communicate in new ways.

NRDC joined forces with Global Citizen to produce content that empowers its highly engaged millennial audience to take action on today’s biggest environmental challenges. As an official NGO partner, we hosted a booth at its 2017 and 2018 musical festival in New York.

NRDC partnered with the Tony-winning Broadway musical Hadestown to engage its audience around climate change and share tips and actions through digital assets and a talkback event tied to Earth Month. NRDC and Hadestown also shared sustainable travel tips during WorldPride via a NYC & Co LinkNYC collaboration. (Photo: Matthew Murphy)

NRDC partners with design and communications studio Imaginary Forces on content and branding projects, including our Emmy-winning documentary Sonic Sea, as well as PSAs, short films, and outdoor advertising, including a billboard on Times Square's largest digital screen.

NRDC teamed up with La Borinqueña to produce La Borinqueña Guest Starring Rosario Dawson. The graphic novel aims to educate audiences about the dangers of climate change and encourage conversation about the importance of a clean energy transition in Puerto Rico and beyond. 

In April 2021, we partnered with Madewell to encourage their audience to support NRDC’s work advancing climate solutions. The collaboration included a matching donation, a reusable tote bag launch, in-store signage promoting sustainability tips, and a social media campaign featuring environmental activist and influencer, Leah Thomas. 

Following the dire 2019 IPCC climate change report, world-renowned writers worked with NRDC experts to craft stories for McSweeney's Issue 58: 2040 AD - Climate Fiction, a special climate fiction issue. NRDC penned the introductory essay, calling for collaboration across disciplines to identify creative ways to tackle the climate crisis.

NRDC partnered with MILK Studios and fashion influencer, Luka Sabbat, on a climate-disaster clothing and accessories collection and gallery experience during New York Fashion Week in February 2019. The supporting digital campaign highlighted that if we don't act now, the collection would become climate-survival realities.

In 2017, NRDC and MoCP explored the environmental and health impacts of a toxic oil-refining process byproduct through “Petcoke: Tracing Dirty Energy.” Commissioned artists’ video installations, sculptures, and interactive maps opened eyes to the petcoke industry, its connection to climate change, and environmental justice. (Artist: Terry Evans, Image courtesy of the artist)

NRDC works with NowThis to produce and distribute videos about critical environmental issues and drive action. Examples include a series from Sundance 2020 produced in collaboration with NowThis "One Small Step,” as well as  content featuring 
Julia Louis-Dreyfus on drinking water contamination and the coal industry’s efforts to gut the Clean Air Act.  

The NRDC Climate Storytelling Fellowship in produced annually in partnership with The Black List, The Redford Center and The CAA Foundation. The Fellowship offers financial support and creative mentorship to writers to support the revision of a feature screenplay or pilot that engages with climate change in a meaningful way. 

In 2022, NRDC partnered with Orion, a nonprofit magazine focused on nature, culture for their 40th anniversary issue. The issue featured 40 original essays and 40 original illustrations, marking a momentous occasion in Orion’s history of storytelling around environmental topics and showcasing NRDC’s work to advance more nuanced climate storytelling.

NRDC partners with Participant to generate activism around its environmentally themed content, including An Inconvenient Truth, Syriana, Last Call at the Oasis, An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power, and Dark Waters. NRDC’s award-winning documentary Wild Things premiered on Participant’s former cable TV network, Pivot.

As a member of the Peoples Climate Movement steering committee, NRDC marched with members and activists as part of the 2016 mass mobilization in Washington, D.C., and around the country and again for the 2018 Rise for Climate, Jobs and Justice march.

PLUS1 uplifts the work of NRDC through partnerships with touring artists—such as Marian Hill, Dirty Heads, Lissie, and SOFI TUKKER—to create awareness, visibility, and funding campaigns that include $1 from every ticket to support our work to safeguard the earth and address today’s most pressing issues.

In collaboration with Prizeo, NRDC partnered with Lin-Manuel Miranda and Vanessa Nadal to launch a fundraising campaign to raise awareness and funds for NRDC, offering the chance for one lucky fan and a guest to attend the London premiere of the renowned musical Hamilton.

In partnership with Propeller, NRDC engages young audiences with calls to action that allow users to win rewards like VIP event tickets and trips around the world. Through Propeller, NRDC has worked with musicians, festivals and comedians including Justin Bieber, Sarah Silverman, Shawn Mendes, Lil Dicky, Kevin Gates, Outside Lands, and more. (Photo: Leah Kuhn)

NRDC’s Rewrite the Future initiative enlists the power of storytelling to help turn the climate crisis around. We offer a range of support to content creators to encourage more, varied, and compelling climate stories in entertainment, including industry dialogue, networking, story consultation, and project development. (Photo: Jose Mandojana/Docuvitae for NRDC)

NRDC has joined Sundance as an official Institute Associate partner since 2019. Whether hosting a venue on Main Street or producing a virtual event, we develop meaningful programming during the festival to explore the power of storytelling to shift cultural narratives, build movements, and create impact. Watch panels from 2022, 2021 and 2020. (Photo: Kim Raff/Getty Images for NRDC)

NRDC partnered with Imaginary Forces, International Fund for Animal Welfare, and Discovery Communications to produce Sonic Sea, a two-time Emmy-winning documentary about the impacts of manmade ocean noise, narrated by Rachel McAdams and featuring Sting, Jean-Michel Cousteau, among others.

In 2018, NRDC partnered with Storm King Art Center on public programming around “Indicators: Artists on Climate Change,” a groundbreaking exhibit that included NRDC’s artist-in-residence, Jenny Kendler, whose large-scale sculpture, Birds Watching, raised awareness of the importance of and threats to the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. (Photo: Jenny Kendler)

As an official partner of the Youth Climate Strikes, NRDC joined in solidarity with the diverse coalition of courageous young people across the United States and the world to demand that transformative action be taken to address the climate crisis.