Are You Doing Your Bit? Campaign 1999/2000

24 Jul 2000

Don't overfill that kettle! A host of celebrities run through the ways that making small changes to everyday habits could help the environment.

Launched by the New Labour government in 1998 and backed by a budget of £25 million, 'Are You Doing Your Bit?' was a nationwide awareness campaign that informed members of the public of the small ways they could help protect the environment, fight global warming, and save money on their energy bills.

From turning down thermostats to boiling only the necessary amount of water required to make a cup of tea, this campaign underlined the link between our daily lives and large-scale environmental issues.

On hand to spread the word was a roster of then-familiar faces, including sports stars (Lennox Lewis, Chris Eubank, Nigel Mansell), comedians (Mark Lamarr, Eddie Izzard) and TV and radio broadcasters (Chris Evans, Zoe Ball, Davina McCall).

This video is a compilation that also includes a celeb-free phase of the campaign, which took a more conventional approach, using actors cast as members of the public and focusing on everyday, often domestic situations.

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From the collection

Climate Challenges: Environmental Issues on Screen

How green causes have been covered and communicated on screen, from acid rain to global warming.

Issues related to climate and the environment are never far from the forefront of public debate and, from the 1990s onwards, the topic of global warming was brought very close to home by a succession of government campaigns tasked with raising awareness about the impact our everyday energy use has on the world around us.

To encourage us to use our cars less, or turn down our thermostats, or adopt a series of energy efficiency guidelines, the powers that be corralled all the ingenuity of the creative sector. And so, be they painted, celeb-filled, funny, heart-breaking or stop-motion animated, these short films appealed to our hearts (and our bank balances) in a bid to save the planet.

This collection places these public information films in dialogue with other environmentally-minded works, ranging from activism to news reports, children's programming to industrial films, to fill out a complex and wide-ranging story that has never been more relevant.

28 videos in this collection

Public information film about global warming

Helping The Earth: Cry

1992

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