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Environment Agency
Inspiring the people who’ll inherit the planet
Green Careers Live inspired children to pursue a career that suits their environmentally conscious minds. And it secured us two wins at the RAD Awards 2026 – one for Events and Experiential and Apprenticeship and School Leaver Attraction.
Participants
19,856
RAD
Experiential
The challenge
School children start to think about their career options and aspirations surprisingly early. Some when they’re still in single figures. But long before they reach school-leaving age, many have fixed ideas about what jobs they can and can’t do – and where.
Many of this future workforce support environmentally responsible behaviour. They just don’t think they can make a career out of it. Or that the Environment Agency even exists.
To solve this issue, we created Family Activity Month: an immersive event based in – and in collaboration with – London’s Science Museum. It was designed to inspire school students and soon-to-be school leavers to use their innate positivity, curiosity and optimism to do the biggest job of them all: maintaining a sustainable planet.
The solution
The core idea was to bring to life the Environment Agency’s employer value proposition – Influence that lasts – for tomorrow’s career-seekers.
Working with the Science Museum gave us not just the perfect space for fun, educational, career-based activities, but the professional validation of a UK scientific heavyweight. This was a vital factor when bringing onboard the audience’s major influencers: their parents and schoolteachers.
The core idea
Together, we promoted the event, built the activities and created an audience-friendly look which really hit home.
We started by creating a small cast of illustrated characters. Big organisations and future career messages can seem intimidating to children. So our friendly, approachable figures immediately set them at ease and drew them in.
The experience
The characters were based on real Environment Agency professionals and jobs. All of the event’s marketing materials were developed to fit this look and feel, and used carefully sourced, re-usable and environmentally friendly materials.
At the start, every visitor was handed an activity map. From there, the activities came thick and fast. They got to:
- Conduct soil tests and learn the impact it has on food quality.
- Food mile quizzes – where does our food come from and how far does it travel?
- The lifecycle of a plastic bottle and its dangers to our environment.
- Learn all about food waste, greenhouse gases and what we can do to reduce them.
- Seaside waste – visitors got to be beach detectives and spot examples of waste.
- Giant ‘Wiggly worms & waterways’ (that’s Snakes & Ladders to Mum and Dad).
At each stop, there were QR codes to watch films and learn more about all the different jobs people do to help protect the environment.
The adventure didn’t stop there.
We created activities, films and quizzes for children to do at home now we’d fired their imagination. One of them involved burying their pants in the back garden to learn all about rates of material decay!
This campaign isn’t one-and-done. To spread the word further, we’re now taking it on the road. The campaign is being repackaged into an annual activity plan. It will go into schools across the country, in the form of in-class activities, careers fairs, toolkits, events and presentations – fronted by Environment Agency staff.
Results
19,856 young people took part in activities. That’s almost 800 every day that it was on.
Green Careers Live was the centrepiece of the Science Museum for the whole month. Children are optimists by nature. Family Activity Month was designed to capitalise on that, planting the seed about all the career possibilities that exist in environmental protection.
And we couldn’t be more pleased by its two wins at the RAD Awards.
Ready to outthink
the competition for talent?
