Public Relations Plan

Letter of Transmittal

Dear sir/madam

This letter has been written to draw your kind attention towards social matter that falls under the company’s CSR activity.

 Saving Sea from Micro plastic this will fall under the company’s CSR activities. This is known to be an infamous aspect of industrialization in Australia. Although there has been attempts to tame the growth of such pollution the growth in industrial sector has given rise to such pollutions. It can be stated that Micro plastic is a major component which is found largely in sea polluting them  and are at disposal from the daily population in the Australian Sea Coast.  In this project plan a conclusive plan will be developed to address the concerning factors to the public and to raise awareness in order to control the existing situation.

This is a formidable plan that will benefits our society. For the plan is discussed below.

Thanking Your

                                                                                                Yours Faithfully

Executive Summary

Marine Pollution has been a growing concern for stakeholders in the recent year industrial sector have been the major cause for the increase of such pollution and increase in such pollution levels are always blamed on the same. The program goal  to ensure that everyone in the area near to a sea are informed about this concerns and an awareness campaign is help to ensure that necessary precaution are taken for the benefit of the ecosystem. The target audience is divided on the basis of three major division primary, secondary and tertiary. Primary are the locals residents on the place, secondary are the social workers and tertiary are clubs in the following region. The target audience have been divided on the contribution that they will have in making the campaign successful. The budgets have also been created to look after the cost that will be needed in completing the programme. It can be said that the budget have been made under minimal, mediocre and optimal situation for the comfort of  having a precise overview on the budget of the project. It can be said that through the use of effective plan the company will be able to execute the stated goal and save sea from micro plastic.

Situation Analysis

In the recent studies, some Marine Biologist that the levels of microplastic pollution in sea sediment of Australian South East Cost have increased abruptly has found it out. The situation in Bicheno and Tasmania are the worst.  In the study, it was seen that the biologist found 3.4 micro plastics in every millilitre of samples, which they collect. This shows that the current situation is very concerning for the environment. Our company on the other hand has a vision of being responsible as firm in the country. The act of responsibility also conducts the CSR activity, which the firm wants to initiate for raising awareness regarding the Micro plastic pollution which are raising in the sea levels of Australia. The current situation are very concerning and complicated but making a step forward for such awareness will to tend to save the environment (Vince & Hardesty, 2017).

The external factors which tend to effect the current situation are political, cultural, social and technological. The political factors are the government steps which it will take towards the initiative of the company. If the government will be supportive the ease of conducting such activity will be easy. The cultural and asocial factors are the combined effort of local population and grow they will support such initiative taken by the company. It is seen that people are now more aware that they need to contribute for the environment that is in favour of such activities.  The technological aspect will boost the pace of campaign and will provide necessary communication required for such programs.

The internal factors are the CSR initiative and approach which the company has towards its CSR programs. It can be said that the company is high motivated to conduct such social initiative that benefits the environment as well as the society of the firm. It can be said that the company has a positive approach towards the activities which are to be carried out by the firm in order to save the sea from micro plastic hazards.

Problem and Consequences

With increasing use of micro plastic the adverse consequences could be easily be observed.  The major impact of it could be observed on the marine life, which is inevitable part of the biosphere. The sea and the oceans are the one of the vital sources of water on earth (Pedrotti et al. 2016). However, with increasing human invasion the pollution of theses water bodies have also consequently increased. Most of industrial and agricultural wastes are poured into this water bodies, which eventually degrades not only the water quality but also the marine life living it. Similarly, by the use of micro plastics the organic pollutants of the sea such as the PCBs, DDT etc concentrates themselves on the surface of theses micro plastics owing to their hydrophobic nature. When the marine animals feed on theses micro plastics they, unintentionally intake the organic pollutant as well which increasing the chances of the concentration of these pollutant in entire food chain (Green et al. 2015)

Campaign Goal

The campaign goal that will be set for achievement for the current Public Relationship plan are as follows:

• Raising awareness related to the micro plastic pollution in sea regions of  Australian South East Coast, Bicheno and Tasmania
• Spreading knowledge related to mitigating the use of micro plastic elements in such areas
• Campaigning in different region of the said region to prescribe necessary precautions, which are to be taken by the public and companies in this areas.
• Raising possible funds from the public as well employing CSR funds to clean up micro plastic elements in the sea to decrease Micro plastic pollution the sea for these regions (Browne, 2015)

The above are the main objectives for the purpose of which the plan will be made to ensure that the pollution spread by micro plastics in sea are decreased and the sea are saved through the pollution done by these elements.

Audience Identification and key messages

            There are three division of the audiences which have been targeted for the current plan of raising awareness and contributing to the society’s environment. The three division of the audience for the current plan are as follows:

Primary: The local people residing in the areas of Australian South East Coast, Bicheno and Tasmania. This will be the primary audience of the campaign, which will be influenced and communicated through the campaign (Syberg, Hansen, Christensen & Khan, 2018)

Secondary:  People belonging from social working background and which are concerned related to the environment we’ll be secondary audience which will be communicated for supporting the campaign and for working for the company’s social operation and saving the sea from micro plastic pollution (Pettipas, Bernier & Walker, 2016).

Tertiary: The fishermen clubs and the docks on these coast which have formed clubs will also be communicated and influenced through the current awareness programme This will help in telling them the precautions which are needed by them to decrease the micro plastic levels in sea sediments (Galloway, Cole & Lewis, 2017)   

  Audience Objectives

The objectives for which the different groups of audience will be targeted are as follows:

Primary: The Local residents of the are stated above are communicated and targeted through the campaign for making them know about the current situation and the deep concerns, which can happen in the future if the situation is not controlled. They will be told about the precautions, which they have to take for controlling the current situation and contributing to the environment (Losh, 2015)

Secondary: The social workers will be communicated from the campaign in order to increase the amount of people who are attracted towards the awareness programme. Social worker would be told to team up with the campaign members and help the company to successfully carrying out the awareness program and to raise funds for cleaning the sea.

Tertiary: The clubs will be communicated to raise awareness about the current situation and telling about the precaution, which they have to take while operating in sea and harbours. Funds will also be raised from these clubs for environmental purpose (Hylton, 2017)

Strategies

The strategy for such campaign is to ensure and aware the targeted audience about the current situation and to help them in controlling the current situation. The Campaign will be divided in three stages. In stage 1 every Locality, social worker and club president will be communicated through a proper campaign in which they will be told about the current situation related to the micro plastic pollution in sea of Australian South East Coast, Bicheno and Tasmania (Struxness & Parker, 2016).  In second stage, the campaign will convey the possible precaution and solution to the current situation. In the third stage, the company will raise some funds from the club and population in the society and will employed its CSR funds in the cleaning activities of the sea. This will be concise program which will primarily focus on betterment of seawater in the current areas (Theaker, 2017)

Communication Tactics

The communication tactic are of two types one is action events in which there will be events organized to communicate with audiences and the other is the verbal tactics in which the audience is communicated through written words such as news releases and pamphlets. The organization will currently use the Action Event tactic to communicate and address the audiences through an event which will be held in localities of Australian South East Coast, Bicheno and Tasmania. The locals, social workers and club presidents will be invited in the event to raise awareness among on the people and to help them understanding the concerns of the current situations.  This will have direct and specific communication with the audience which have been targeted in this campaign (Pearson, 2017)

Schedule

For the purpose of creating a proper schedule for the plan a Gantt chart is made to show the milestones and deadlines for each work which will be initiated in the campaign:

Budget

Evaluation Plan

After the implementation of the plan it has been seen that thee will drastic changes in behaviours of every individual towards the contribution of ensuring that micro plastic pollution does not increase in the sea for the concerned areas (Ling, Sinclair, Levi, Reeves & Edgar, 2017). It will take a lot of effort to engage the population in such work but it will be possible after everything goes right cleaning of the sea will ensure the purity of sea water is regained which will decrease the pollution in sea levels.

Pertinent Research

In order to compile a prominent research before making a plan government websites and local polls were taken to know about the current situation revolving around micro plastic pollution in sea levels.  Websites related to micro plastic pollution in sea were analysed to- know about the rates of increase and decrease of this pollution in the sea coast of Australia. Prior to confident and precise, research the regions of Australian South East Coast, Bicheno and Tasmania. The sources of the this kind of pollution was determined to know the extent to which this can increase in the future days of Australia.  The effect to sea marine life is magnificent through this kind of pollution (Syberg, Hansen, Christensen & Khan, 2018).  All this knowledge related to environmental effect lead to a decision that protecting sea from micro plastic would be the ideal cause for which the company can work for the society.

Communication Samples

An invitational letter is been made for inviting locals of Australian South East Coast, Bicheno and Tasmania. The letter comprises of the name of the company, an invitation quoting everyone to join the event and to get information relating to concern of the micro plastic pollution in sea. The major concern and future consequences that can happen were also mentioned to ensure that every one attends the meeting and contributes towards a social cause (Zhang et al. 2017).   

References

Browne, M. A. (2015). Sources and pathways of microplastics to habitats. In Marine anthropogenic litter (pp. 229-244). Springer, Cham.

Galloway, T. S., Cole, M., & Lewis, C. (2017). Interactions of microplastic debris throughout the marine ecosystem. Nature ecology & evolution, 1(5), 0116.

Green, S. J., Armstrong, J., Bogan, M., Darling, E., Kross, S., Rochman, C. M., … & Veríssimo, D. (2015). Conservation needs diverse values, approaches, and practitioners. Conservation Letters, 8(6), 385-387.

Hylton, L. L. (2017). Microplastic pollution in Indiana’s White River: an exploratory study.

Ling, S. D., Sinclair, M., Levi, C. J., Reeves, S. E., & Edgar, G. J. (2017). Ubiquity of microplastics in coastal seafloor sediments. Marine pollution bulletin, 121(1-2), 104-110.

Losh, S. (2015). A proposed method to analyze meso-and microplastic pollution on beaches in Oregon.

Pearson, R. (2017). Business ethics as communication ethics: Public relations practice and the idea of dialogue. In Public relations theory (pp. 111-131). Routledge.

Pedrotti, M. L., Petit, S., Elineau, A., Bruzaud, S., Crebassa, J. C., Dumontet, B., … & Cózar, A. (2016). Changes in the floating plastic pollution of the Mediterranean Sea in relation to the distance to land. PloS one, 11(8), e0161581.

Pettipas, S., Bernier, M., & Walker, T. R. (2016). A Canadian policy framework to mitigate plastic marine pollution. Marine Policy, 68, 117-122.

Struxness, R., & Parker, M. (2016). Strategic Public Relations Plan & Client Materials Redmond Wastewater Division.

Syberg, K., Hansen, S. F., Christensen, T. B., & Khan, F. R. (2018). Risk perception of plastic pollution: Importance of stakeholder involvement and citizen science. In Freshwater Microplastics (pp. 203-221). Springer, Cham.

Theaker, A. (2017). What is public relations?. In The Public Relations Strategic Toolkit (pp. 17-27). Routledge.

Vince, J., & Hardesty, B. D. (2017). Plastic pollution challenges in marine and coastal environments: from local to global governance. Restoration Ecology, 25(1), 123-128

Zhang, W., Zhang, S., Wang, J., Wang, Y., Mu, J., Wang, P., … & Ma, D. (2017). Microplastic pollution in the surface waters of the Bohai Sea, China. Environmental Pollution, 231, 541-548.