Artificial Intelligence and the Challenge of Trustworthy and Inclusive Environmental Communication

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has moved beyond the hype and is now being integrated into daily life. But there are critical questions about the social impact and trustworthiness of AI-generated communication and who has the power to define how these technologies are embedded in routine practice. As environmental organisations adapt to this rapidly-evolving new landscape, they must navigate the complex hopes and fears surrounding AI. The spread of disinformation through low quality and misleading AI images, sometimes termed ‘AI slop’, is threatening credible, authentic, and engaging environmental communication. AI infrastructures pose deep dilemmas for traditionally underfunded environmental organisations: they are attracted by the potential boosts to campaign efficiency but repelled by the environmental costs. This ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship will examine these new issues by dissecting how environmental organisations perceive AI, how their campaign practices are evolving in the process of interacting with AI, and whether they are developing genuinely ethical and inclusive AI frameworks. Part of my ESRC-funded PhD explored Greenpeace International’s adoption and use of generative AI platforms such as Midjourney in the context of the organisation’s evolving digital communication strategies. I discovered that typical AI visualisations of climate futures often conflicted with Greenpeace’s own internal statements on AI use, as well as its broader goals of decolonisation and empowerment. This Fellowship will augment these findings by exploring how a broader range of organisations perceive, use and navigate AI challenges. This will be achieved through four streams of work: 1) I will submit my in-progress book (under contract with Palgrave), publish an article on AI and environmental communication in a high-impact journal, and present my research at the prestigious ICA and IAMCR 2026 conferences. 2) With Greenpeace International, Friends of the Earth and The Wildlife Trusts as project partners I will foster new networks and collaborations to maximise the social impact of my research. This includes informing the development of their AI frameworks and encouraging reflexive AI practices. I will achieve this through delivering a hybrid workshop at Loughborough on ‘Best practice principles for AI and environmental communication’ for invited environmental representatives and key stakeholders, as well as publishing a public-facing report on AI for environmental organisations. 3) Expanding on my PhD findings, I will conduct pioneering targeted new research that explores how environmental organisations are employing generative AI in their communication campaigns and the implications this has for effective and ethical environmental advocacy. The gaps in research on the social impacts of AI technologies grow wider by the day as the rate of adoption accelerates. Through conducting interviews and novel participatory AI fieldwork sessions with key environmental representatives, and analysing environmental organisations’ internal AI documents and press releases, I will add to essential research efforts globally. 4) Building on this Fellowship, I will develop funding applications for further early career research fellowships schemes: the Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship, the British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship, and the ESRC New Investigator grant. These proposals will broaden the focus to the use of AI technology in environmental communication internationally. Through publishing a book, journal article, public-facing report, developing future research proposals, and hosting a workshop for environmental practitioners, this Fellowship will develop the new field of AI and environmental communication research, and support my goal of becoming a recognised leader in the field of environmental communication.