Powering the largest climate strike in history

The climate crisis was becoming increasingly impossible to ignore.

Across the world, young people were demanding urgent action from governments and institutions. The Global Climate Strike represented a defining moment for the movement, but achieving meaningful impact required more than passionate messaging.

People needed to know where to go, how to get involved, and how to encourage others to join them.

With just two months before the strike, the challenge was clear: build the digital infrastructure capable of supporting a rapidly growing movement and maximise participation on a national and international scale.

Before building anything, we brought together Greenpeace, UKSCN, and The Small Axe to align around a shared goal.

Working collaboratively, we ran a Theory of Change workshop to identify the behaviours that would contribute most directly to increasing participation and determine which digital products would have the greatest impact.

This exercise quickly clarified priorities and allowed us to focus development efforts on the areas most likely to grow attendance, increase visibility, and strengthen supporter engagement.

The outcome was a plan for three interconnected products, each supporting a different part of the campaign journey.

The first challenge was helping people find and attend climate strikes.

Rather than creating a standalone campaign microsite, we rebuilt the UKSCN website and integrated strike discovery directly into the organisation's existing digital presence. This allowed the campaign to benefit from an established audience while creating a stronger long-term platform for the organisation.

Users could quickly find events near them, access key information, and submit new strike events through a streamlined workflow.

By reducing friction and improving discoverability, the platform made participation significantly easier at a critical moment for the movement.

Awareness alone would not be enough to achieve the campaign's ambitions.

To maximise reach, we designed and developed Climate Quest, a gamified engagement platform that encouraged supporters to actively promote the strike through their own networks.

Users created personalised avatars and completed social sharing challenges that rewarded participation with points and new objectives. The more actions users completed, the greater their reach and influence became.

By introducing elements of progression, competition, and reward, Climate Quest transformed passive supporters into active campaign ambassadors.

The platform helped extend the campaign's reach far beyond traditional organisational channels.

Alongside supporter engagement, Greenpeace and UKSCN needed better visibility into what was happening across social media.

To support this, we co-developed a social monitoring platform that identified influential voices already discussing the climate strike and wider environmental issues.

The tool enabled campaign teams to quickly identify supporters, monitor conversations, and engage with individuals capable of amplifying campaign messages to large audiences.

In a campaign operating at such speed, this ability to identify and engage influential voices proved invaluable.

The project combined multiple products and technologies within a tightly compressed delivery timeline.

The UKSCN website was rebuilt using WordPress and integrated with Action Network to manage events, supporter data, and donations. A custom React-powered events map allowed users to discover strikes across the country.

Climate Quest was developed using React, Node.js, and a bespoke API that tracked completed actions, awarded points, and generated new challenges dynamically.

The social monitoring platform utilised a microservice architecture built with Node.js, RabbitMQ, ExpressJS, and PostgreSQL, enabling large-scale data collection and processing across social media channels.

Together, these systems formed a cohesive digital ecosystem capable of supporting a rapidly growing international movement.

The campaign exceeded expectations at every level.

The platforms attracted more than 780,000 visits within 30 days, while newsletter sign-ups increased fivefold. More than 200 strike events took place across the UK, contributing to over 4,500 events globally.

Most importantly, over four million people participated in climate strikes worldwide, making 20 September 2019 the largest climate mobilisation in history.

While no single platform can claim responsibility for a movement of this scale, the tools played a critical role in helping organisers coordinate activity, supporters spread the message, and participants find ways to get involved.

The project demonstrated what can happen when strong campaign strategy, thoughtful product design, and effective technology come together around a shared purpose.