Get in touch

We'd love to hear from you.

Feel free to contact us on 08000 025 889 or by emailing hello@barleycommunications.co.uk

Book in a Barley comms clinic

As part of Barley’s ongoing commitment to support organisations that are making a positive change in the world, we offer a free comms clinic.

We’re here to provide advice and a confidential sounding board to help you navigate your communications challenges. Share your details below to book a session with Barley’s senior communications experts.

Contact Sheet Form ('25)
Areas of interest for discussion
I have read the Privacy Policy and consent to be contacted by Barley Communications

The brief

Oceana appointed Barley to provide environmental campaign consultancy to support its ambition to secure a sustainable future for UK fisheries. As the UK left the EU, Oceana sought to influence government decision-making on the UK Fisheries Act and the setting of total allowable catch limits in UK waters. Our task was to strengthen Oceana’s voice on conservation campaign priorities and raise its UK profile at a pivotal moment for marine policy.

Insights and approach

With decisions on overfishing shaped by three key developments — the UK Fisheries Bill, the UK-EU Fisheries Agreement and the 2021 total allowable catch (TAC) negotiations — we designed a targeted strategy to influence each stage.

For the Fisheries Bill, we drafted a timely letter to the editor for the Daily Telegraph and issued a press release as the Bill reached Parliament, ensuring Oceana’s position was clearly and credibly communicated.

Ahead of the UK-EU Fisheries Agreement, we secured an opinion piece by Oceana CEO Andy Sharpless for Indy100 Conversations and prepared two outcome-based press releases to move quickly once the vote concluded.When national lockdown restrictions prevented Oceana’s planned physical activation during TAC negotiations, we pivoted fast. We used the release of Oceana’s first-of-its-kind UK fisheries audit to highlight the scale and impact of overfishing. This was supported by tailored social content and short video clips to extend reach across relevant audiences.

Results

Coverage of the Fisheries Audit was extensive, with a Guardian article trending in the number one news spot on Apple News on launch day. Prominent environmental voices — including Chris Packham, George Monbiot and Greenpeace — amplified the findings across social media, helping drive wider public attention to the issue of overfishing.The Indy100 opinion piece by Andy Sharpless gained further traction, shared multiple times by The Independent (3.5m followers) over several months. Together, these moments strengthened Oceana’s influence on UK marine policy and significantly elevated its national profile.

  • 46

    pieces of coverage

  • 247m

    opportunities to see or hear

  • 750+

    social media engagements

  • 3,000+

    video views

  • 342k

    timeline deliveries of #EndOverfishing

“

We very much enjoyed working with Barley Communications thanks to their PR skills, professionalism and responsiveness.

Melissa Moore

Head of Policy – UK, Oceana

The brief

Recycling contamination caused by dirty nappies costs local authorities millions each year. In 2019/20, Biffa estimated the cost at £1.48m. North London Waste Authority asked us to develop a recycling communications campaign to reduce nappy contamination, encourage parents to dispose of nappies in general waste, and support their call for clearer labelling from manufacturers.

Insights and approach

We started by visiting the Materials Recovery Centre to understand the real-world impact of recycling contamination. Staff confirmed that dirty nappies were a persistent and unpleasant contaminant because sorting is done by hand. Polling showed one in ten parents admitted to putting nappies in household recycling, often because packaging displayed recycling symbols or because “disposable” was mistaken for “recyclable”.

These insights shaped a behaviour-led creative approach. Rather than blame parents, we built an accessible and memorable environmental behaviour change campaign — Bin Your Nappy — that gave people clear, simple guidance.

The campaign centred on an animated video rewriting a familiar nursery rhyme, voiced by local schoolchildren. Paid social ran across Facebook, Instagram and Spotify to reach parents across north London. We also equipped local authorities, health partners and children’s centres with posters and materials to reinforce the message.To support NLWA’s call for clearer labelling, we produced a LinkedIn video for Authority leaders to amplify to industry. The campaign continued into 2021 with humorous influencer content from The Scummy Mummies, helping the message reach new parents at scale 

Results

The story captured national attention, securing coverage across Sky News, BBC, ITV, Mail Online, Huffington Post and major online news outlets. London broadcasters produced in-depth pieces featuring interviews and extracts from the animation, reinforcing the behavioural message.
Regional uptake was strong, with a PA story syndicated widely. Social engagement was high, with broadcaster-shared videos generating tens of thousands of views and extensive audience interaction. The campaign successfully raised awareness, shifted understanding among parents and strengthened NLWA’s call for clearer product labelling.

  • 15

    national media items (target 2–3)

  • 15

    London items (target 5–8)

  • 184

    regional items

  • 70k

    social media impressions

  • 19.5%

    webpage click-through rate

“

We were really impressed with the time the Barley team invested at the outset of this campaign to get under the skin of the issue of recycling contamination, both in terms of the behaviours behind it and the impact on recycling. The Bin Your Nappy campaign they came up is so creative and perfectly designed to resonate with parents of young children. They were also really thoughtful in how this creative could best be deployed, introducing us to new channels to reach north London parents, particularly those who don’t traditionally engage with environmental messages. We were absolutely thrilled with the results.

Miriam Cragg

Senior Communications Manager, NLWA

The brief

Barnardo’s asked us to inspire a shift in public behaviour around the purchase of summer fashion and occasion wear — encouraging people to buy second-hand instead of new. The Summer Fashion for Every Occasion campaign set out to highlight the environmental impact of “single-use fashion” while driving more people into Barnardo’s charity shops. Our target was eight to twelve pieces of national media coverage — a goal we far surpassed.

Insights and approach

The UK is the biggest consumer of new clothes in Europe. Our research revealed that in summer 2019 alone, Brits planned to spend £2.7 billion on 50 million summer outfits they’d only wear once — a huge waste of money and materials.

We reframed this issue by linking it to the public conversation on single-use plastics, offering journalists and audiences a fresh, relatable way to understand fashion waste. Our story introduced the idea of “single-use fashion” as an equally pressing environmental concern.By focusing on summer fashion and offering a simple call to action — shop second-hand at Barnardo’s — we combined a strong behavioural insight with a clear solution. A Barnardo’s summer lookbook and short film featuring sustainable fashion influencers amplified the message across stores, social media and online channels.

Results

The campaign exceeded every target. We generated 262 items of coverage, including 27 national stories (against a target of 8–12), reaching an estimated 222 million people.

More importantly, the campaign drove an additional £118k in sales, equivalent to 26k new customers, directly supporting Barnardo’s work with vulnerable children. While other retailers saw slow summer sales, Barnardo’s stores outperformed the sector — evidence of both immediate impact and longer-term attitude change.Our influence extended well beyond the campaign period, with Glamour magazine referencing Barnardo’s as part of a growing sustainable fashion movement.

  • 262

    items of coverage

  • 22m

    opportunities to see/hear

  • 27

    items of national coverage (against a target of 8-12)

  • £118,491

    in additional sales

  • 26,331

    in additional customers

“

Absolutely amazing! We are so happy with the outcome of this campaign.

Charlie Enright

Head of Retail Marketing, Barnardo’s

The brief

ReLondon wanted to inspire 16–24-year-old Londoners to rethink fast fashion and choose more sustainable ways to buy, use and dispose of clothes. They asked Barley to create a sustainable fashion campaign that could cut through the constant fast-fashion advertising aimed at young people.The goal was simple but ambitious: extend the life of clothing by encouraging reuse and recycling, diverting thousands of items from incineration and landfill.

Insights and approach

We worked with ReLondon to create #LoveNotLandfill, a fresh, youth-focused brand designed to connect authentically with young Londoners. Polling revealed that 16–24-year-olds throw away around 35 million items of clothing each year, so we needed a message that was impactful without being judgemental.

Through workshops with the ReLondon team, we developed brand values, messaging and a tone of voice that balanced urgency with positivity. We collaborated with designers to build an energetic visual identity that stood out from fast-fashion branding while still feeling accessible and trend-aware — an important insight from our focus groups.

Influencers played a central role. We brokered a partnership with the anonymous street artist Bambi, whose artwork became a recognisable motif across campaign materials. We also produced a video with Bambi to launch a network of Love Not Landfill clothes banks across London.

To reach young audiences where they already are, we combined digital creativity with real-world experiences. We delivered workshops in London schools on swapping and restyling clothes, and ran three public campaign phases: a Swap & Style event at a textile recycling facility; the launch of branded clothes-recycling banks; and a Brick Lane pop-up shop curated by leading fashion influencers.Barley supported the campaign with targeted media outreach, listings, previews and influencer engagement to spark conversation and encourage participation on and offline.

Results

#LoveNotLandfill quickly established itself as a credible youth sustainability brand. The campaign generated widespread coverage across national, consumer and broadcast media, including The Sun, Sunday Mirror, ITV London and BBC Radio London, with in-depth features on MailOnline, Marie Claire and Huffington Post.

More than 700 contributors shared campaign messages on social media, helping it reach over 2.4 million people. The campaign video attracted 90,000+ views, and the Brick Lane pop-up welcomed 2,000 visitors over four days, generating around £15,000 in sales of pre-loved clothing.

The strong creative identity helped secure partnerships with major retailers including Topshop, ASOS and Westfield, further expanding reach and visibility. Although initially conceived as a one-year initiative, the youth communications campaign is now in its third year, with ongoing demand for ReLondon spokespeople and continued media interest. One year in, more than 60% of the target audience were aware of the brand — and most had changed their behaviour as a result.

  • 101m

    opportunities to see/hear

  • 2.4m

    reached on social media

  • 90k

    video views

  • 2,000

    pop-up visitors

  • £15k

    pre-loved clothing sales

“

Working with Barley Communications on our Love Not Landfill campaign has been not only enjoyable but hugely fruitful: we obviously loved the campaign already, but were overwhelmed by the attention and support that Barley helped us achieve. They didn’t just deliver media relations but helped us with the whole approach, including ideas generation, social media management and film production. They also hooked us up with some great partners, collaborators and creative specialists along the way. The whole Barley team has been enthusiastic, cheerful and eminently practical at every stage – a flexible and responsive communications agency who’ve delivered reach, impact and engagement beyond our expectations.

Ali Moore

Head of communications and behaviour change, ReLondon

The brief

Hubbub asked us to help raise national awareness of its Plastic Fishing initiative — an inventive programme tackling plastic pollution by inspiring people to rethink the value of waste. Between 2017 and 2019, the charity launched the world’s first boats made from 99% recycled plastic. These vessels were designed to clean up UK waterways and spark a wider conversation about recycling and responsible disposal. Barley was tasked with managing the media launches of the boats — Poly-Mer, Vitamin Sea, Poly Roger and PET Project — and securing strong public engagement.

Insights and approach

We recognised the power of the boats themselves as compelling visual stories. For the launches of Poly-Mer and PET Project we coordinated a high-impact photo, filming and interview opportunity for the boats’ maiden voyages. Environment Minister Thérèse Coffey MP joined a Plastic Fishing trip alongside local schoolchildren, helping to reinforce the initiative’s educational value.

Our media strategy focused on broad reach and relevance. We targeted commuter press, London-wide and local London outlets, national media, online news, broadcast, children’s news and trade titles. We also provided broadcasters with behind-the-scenes footage of the boats being built to strengthen interest and coverage.For Poly Roger’s Plastic Fishing Tour across Manchester, Scotland, Birmingham and Bristol, we supported Hubbub to partner with local organisations and volunteers. This ensured each stop had community ownership and delivered hands-on experiences for schoolchildren and businesses. We arranged a national exclusive with the Daily Mirror ahead of the announcement and coordinated tailored local launches with spokespeople in each region. Messaging encouraged the public to help stem the flow of plastic into rivers and waterways through simple behaviour changes.

Results

Our work drove national visibility for Hubbub’s mission and helped establish Plastic Fishing as a recognisable, practical approach to tackling plastic pollution.

  • The Poly-Mer launch generated 119 pieces of coverage, reaching an estimated 124 million opportunities to see or hear.
  • PET Project secured 47 items of coverage and almost 106 million opportunities to see or hear.
  • The 2019 Plastic Fishing Tour delivered 301 coverage items and nearly 118 million opportunities to see or hear across four locations.

The activity also inspired real-world behaviour change. Plastic Fishing participants collected 2,233 bottles and 192 bags of general waste during the tour. In London, more than 2,500 people have taken part, reclaiming over 300kg of recyclable plastic — with 90% pledging not to buy a plastic bottle for a month afterwards.

2,203

plastic bottles collected

192

bags of general waste collected

2,500

people who have been plastic fishing

300kg

recyclable plastic reclaimed

The brief

Londoners use around 7.7 billion plastic water bottles every year — 10% of all litter in the Thames and a major source of ocean pollution.

Borough Market wanted to lead by example. The Market committed to becoming the first in the UK to phase out bottled water, installing public drinking fountains and setting a goal to stop selling bottled water within six months.

Our challenge was to show that putting the environment ahead of profit can be both practical and powerful — inspiring others to follow suit.

Insights and approach

Our communications strategy positioned Borough Market as a credible pioneer of sustainable retail.

We delivered an integrated PR and social campaign encouraging visitors to refill rather than buy single-use bottles, while also targeting large organisations across London and the UK to adopt similar measures.

To ensure authenticity, we contextualised the initiative within the Market’s wider sustainability journey — demonstrating that this was no ‘greenwash’ but a genuine commitment to environmental responsibility.

Strong visuals were central to our approach. We developed a bright, engaging visual identity for the fountains, including posters, floor vinyl and reusable bottles. The story was amplified through proactive media relations and a social campaign using #BoroughFountains, extending reach through user-generated content and influencer engagement.

Results

The campaign received national and international attention, with coverage from The Guardian, Mail Online, BBC, The Sun, Telegraph, Metro, and Huffington Post.

Borough Market was hailed by Mintel as “leading the way in one of four key European sustainability trends to follow for 2018”. The initiative influenced announcements from the Mayor of London, UK Government, and Network Rail, all referencing Borough Market’s leadership. Nearly a year later, media continued to call for interviews and comment — testament to the campaign’s enduring influence.

  • 107

    pieces of coverage

  • 372m

    opportunities to see/hear

  • 30,000

    shares of The Guardian article on social media

  • 66,000

    views of the BBC London video on Facebook

  • 6,000

    people per week using Borough Market drinking fountains

“

Barley were the natural choice for us when looking to launch our public water fountains and becoming the first Market to phase out the use of single use plastic bottles. The team at Barley swiftly developed a great understanding of our organisation, our values and objectives. They worked with us to develop a brand identity and campaign in a very short time scale and the results speak for themselves – national and international print, online and broadcast coverage which far exceeded our expectations.

Kate Howell

Development and Communications Director, Borough Market

The brief

Barley was appointed by the World Energy Council to provide website development support that would help increase global membership sign-ups. As a long-established membership organisation, the Council needed a modern, intuitive site that clearly communicated its purpose and encouraged energy leaders to join a worldwide community committed to a sustainable future for energy.

Insights and approach

With only six weeks to deliver a fully rebuilt site, we focused on a clear strategy and agile delivery to shape our website development support.

Our discovery phase brought together insight from across the organisation and its network. We conducted stakeholder interviews, ran an interactive workshop with the senior team, and issued a global online survey that drew 112 responses from members in multiple countries. We also carried out a detailed competitor review, benchmarking the Council’s online presence against five comparable organisations specialising in energy and sustainability.

These insights helped us define the website’s communications goals, from strengthening the brand and improving user experience to enhancing SEO performance and building clear, compelling calls to action.Guided by these principles, we developed the site architecture, including a new sitemap and wireframes, before writing all website copy and sourcing relevant media. We oversaw the full website design, build and migration, ensuring every element supported the Council’s ambition to communicate its mission and grow its membership.

Results

Within six days of launch, the World Energy Council received 58 new membership applications—many from their primary target audience. Early feedback highlighted the improved clarity of messaging, more intuitive navigation and a stronger articulation of the Council’s role in supporting an equitable global energy transition. The new site now provides a clearer pathway for prospective members and a more engaging experience for existing ones, supporting ongoing growth and community engagement.

The brief

Barley worked with Alupro to raise awareness of the unintended consequences of an ‘all-in’ deposit return scheme (DRS) for drinks containers in Scotland. Our objective was to influence policymakers to move away from a flat-rate deposit for all container sizes, which risked increasing plastic waste rather than reducing it.

Insights and approach

To evidence the potential impact of the proposed DRS, Barley commissioned a poll of 2,000 adults. Two-thirds said they would switch from infinitely recyclable multipack cans to larger plastic bottles if faced with a flat 20p deposit—potentially adding 823 million plastic bottles each year.

We combined insight-led media and political engagement to put pressure on policymakers to consider a variable deposit fee based on container size.

Our strategy centred around well-timed media activity and stakeholder engagement. We launched the polling results ahead of an MSP briefing, offering Alupro’s Executive Director, Rick Hindley, as spokesperson. We developed an infographic to illustrate the risks of the scheme and reinforced the story through national, regional and trade media.

The campaign extended to social media, where we used the hashtag #MakeDRSWork to target MPs, MSPs and other influencers during key parliamentary moments. Barley also produced a stakeholder toolkit for Alupro members to amplify the campaign through their own channels

Results

Barley successfully raised Alupro’s profile at a pivotal point in the Scottish recycling debate. The campaign generated 33 high-quality pieces of coverage, including interviews on BBC Radio Scotland, BBC Scotland TV and STV Scotland Tonight. Print and online articles appeared in The Scotsman, The Herald, The Courier, Edinburgh Evening News, Daily Record and others, alongside 10 trade media features.

On social media, 20 posts achieved 263,710 impressions and strong engagement.

Most importantly, our campaign helped secure recognition from the committee advising the Scottish Government that a variable rate should be considered—positioning Alupro as a key voice in shaping the next phase of policy development.

  • 33

    items of media coverage

  • 20m +

    opportunities to see/hear

  • 264k

    Twitter impressions

  • 2,417

    Twitter engagements

  • 1,497

    Facebook reach

  • 124

    Facebook engagements

The brief

Every day up to seven million coffee cups are thrown away across the UK, with less than one per cent recycled. To tackle this challenge, Hubbub launched the Square Mile Challenge — the UK’s first large-scale coffee cup recycling initiative — in partnership with the City of London Corporation, major café brands and cup manufacturers.Barley was asked to shape the recycling communications campaign, providing a clear media strategy, creative ideas and launch execution. The goal was to build public awareness, engage employers across the City, and help recycle 500,000 cups in April and five million by the end of 2017.

Insights and approach

To cut through in a crowded sustainability landscape, we positioned the Square Mile Challenge as the first truly collaborative, cross-industry effort to fix coffee cup recycling — a model that could be scaled across the UK.

We began by targeting City employers through national consumer and specialist trade media. This early push exceeded expectations, with 36 organisations adopting workplace recycling systems against a target of 30.

For the campaign launch, we created striking visual moments designed for press and social channels. A sculpture of the London skyline made from recycled cups and a coffee-cup choir performing outside Liverpool Street station generated powerful imagery and a memorable public experience. We coupled this with a focused burst of London and national media relations to maximise visibility.Barley also led communications for Hubbub’s partnership with Starbucks to trial a 5p disposable cup charge across 35 London stores — providing strategic counsel, narrative development and press handling. Later, we amplified momentum by responding rapidly to the government’s budget announcement with a supportive statement on the proposed ‘Latte Levy’, securing further national attention and reinforcing Hubbub’s leadership on behaviour change communications.

Results

Barley delivered sustained, high-impact coverage that drove public engagement and workplace participation. The campaign launch achieved 224 pieces of coverage and 307 million opportunities to see across national and London outlets, helping the initiative reach — and surpass — its target of recycling 500,000 cups in April 2017. By year-end, five million cups had been collected.

Strategic media response to political developments unlocked another wave of interest. The Starbucks trial, supported by our communications, resulted in a 150 per cent increase in reusable cup uptake and informed the chain’s decision to roll out the charge nationwide.The success of the Square Mile Challenge catalysed wider behaviour change, inspiring similar on-the-go recycling initiatives in Leeds, Swansea and Edinburgh through the ‘Leeds By Example’ and #InTheLoop programmes.

  • 851

    coverage items

  • 882m

    opportunities to see/hear

  • 7.3m

    Twitter impressions at launch

  • 3.2m

    Twitter reach at launch

  • 510k

    cups recycled in April 2017

  • 5m

    cups recycled in 2017

“

Barley Communications made a huge contribution to the success of Square Mile Challenge. The media reach from both the campaign announcement and campaign launch were beyond our expectations. The announcement coverage helped us to generate further sponsorship for the campaign and ensured that we surpassed our target of signing up 30 businesses to the scheme, while the launch coverage was widespread and contributed to us hitting the target of 500,000 cups in April. The Barley team are always proactive, tenacious, professional and very much an extension of the Hubbub team.

Gavin Ellis

Co-founder, Hubbub

Want to chat?
Feel free to contact our team.