Assaad Razzouk is a Lebanese-British clean energy entrepreneur, investor and art gallery owner who co-founded Singapore-based Sindicatum Renewable Energy in 2005. As chairman and CEO of this award-winning company, which develops and operates clean energy projects in Asia, Razzouk has become a vocal advocate for raising awareness about climate change and dispelling some of the myths and misconceptions that have arisen around renewable energy.
I’ve long admired and followed Razzouk on social media, particularly Twitter and LinkedIn. His approach is disciplined, evidence-based and totally engaging.
On his social media channels, he only discusses climate change and the articles and research he shares are from a variety of sources. It’s not just what you see in mainstream news, it’s articles from all over the world.
His motivation and what is effectively his editorial strategy are one and the same.
It is incumbent on all of us to find a rooftop and then start shouting from it about climate change.”
See how simple that is? And when you read his tweets, it’s the prism through which each of his posts passes. There’s passion and frustration, sure – after all, climate change is devastating for all inhabitants of the planet – but above all Razzouk is giving you ALL the news about climate change, unfiltered by a political agenda.
Like many on the frontline of climate change work, Razzouk feels angry at the obstacles to action: “You know very well that your one or two or five or even 20 solar power plants are not going to be enough to solve the problem…, change is not going to occur because of oil investors who are too rich and too powerful and too omnipresent, so to speak.”
So in 2011, Razzouk began broadcasting on Twitter, later expanding his presence onto Facebook and LinkedIn.
Naturally, there’s some work that goes behind getting to 30 minutes a day. Part of this, according to Razzouk, is summing up the research and news he is reading every day in a way that the general public can read. It’s about building confidence.
I would add one more step: like Razzouk, work out your editorial vision and stick to it.
Having accumulated a decade of knowledge and insight across three platforms, Razzouk has come to understand how different these audiences are. On LinkedIn – a platform for professionals – the audience and commentators are generally well-known and heavily engaged. Given its broadcast nature, Twitter, on the other hand, can drive greater engagement – although comments are often anonymous, and can be less balanced.
Razzouk has a Facebook presence, but acknowledges his engagement levels are a lot lower there, as people are mainly there to see their friends.
In 2019, having recognised the limitations of social media, he launched a podcast. ‘The Angry Clean Energy Guy’ is available on platforms that include Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Google Play. Now in a bid to extend his reach and provide easily digestible information in 15- to 25-minute broadcasts, he is up to Episode 35, and releases an episode every two weeks. His podcasts have been downloaded over 50,000 times so far, and he remains hopeful that his approach (consistency, persistence, no-nonsense and a clear editorial vision) will pay off in much larger podcast numbers over time: It took a disciplined approach over three years for his Twitter to take off, and five years in the case of LinkedIn.
So what are his lessons from a decade of social media?
1. Consistency and relevance count
Consistency is critical,”says Razzouk, “my followers do not really care about my opinions on Brexit because if I tweet on Brexit, you know it does not get picked up.”
As a businessman building renewable energy projects and power plants in India, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand, and previously in China, with plans for expansion into more Asian countries, Razzouk has a clear agenda. His business, after all, depends on investors continuing to buy into renewable energy.
As part of this, he believes it is his responsibility to stay on top of industry developments. This means reading widely around the subject and consistent and relevant messaging. It might take just minutes to post, but to truly engage, you must deliver what people want. The audience must understand clearly why they are coming to you for information. In other words, if you shout about clean energy and climate change, stick to that rather than diverting to other issues that may be of personal interest, but not the audience’s.
2. A bottom’s up world view is helpful
There is so much to be angry about when you are passionate about clean energy and on the front line of climate change. “It is one thing looking at the problem from very far away and a completely different thing when you are in places Bangladesh, India or Thailand, where the suffering is real.” So understanding the impact on the most exposed or vulnerable is really important in communicating it.
3. Bias exists, let the world know about it
A reason Razzouk took to social media was because he became frustrated by the inherent bias of some news organisations – most notably those owned by media tycoon Rupert Murdoch. He cites the misinformation delivered by so-called experts on Sky News about the health of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef Australia as one high-profile example. “If you were a Sky News listener in Australia, you would be led to believe there is no problem whatsoever,” he says. “I had to shout about the lies and untruths being told by a huge media organisation, and I hoped that somebody, somewhere was listening.”
4. Positivity counts for something
The renewable energy entrepreneur does not mince words when it comes to the inevitable bad news. Of course, people must be aware of big companies saying one thing but then spending a billion dollars to lobby for the opposite. They also need to fully understand the economic consequences of their choices and actions on the global disadvantaged.
“But you cannot just keep on broadcasting bad news. You also have to offer implementable solutions and keep abreast of innovation. We cannot just sit on the couch and complain all day long, right? We need to act too.”
But even Razzouk’s friends struggle to follow all of his news.
“A friend unfollowed me on Twitter. I called him up. He said: ‘To be honest, I’ve had a rough time coping with all the depressing environmental stuff’ So I created Ep. 27 of #TheAngryCleanEnergyGuy podcast to set out the strong case for climate optimism’.”
5. It doesn’t have to be time-consuming or costly
Often researchers say they are too busy and do not have the time to use social media. However, it does not have to be time-consuming or expensive. With an understanding of the technology, Razzouk says, it is possible “to read an article, right-hand click on it, buffer it, edit it, save it to all free networks and broadcast it at the right time.” Admittedly, not everybody may have Razzouk’s knack for communication, but he does not use an agency to draft his material. He publishes a wide range of content, commenting on everything from newspaper clippings to videos, infographics and graphs. If he has an opinion, he shares it and allows his personality to shine through.
By keeping the language simple and clear, it is accessible to everybody. This does not mean it is lightweight – he shares information that is often not found in mainstream media and generally includes links for further reading.
Excluding his podcast, on his three main social media platforms – LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter – this takes a maximum of 30 minutes each day. The podcast adds four to five hours to that in total for each fortnightly episode.
6. Get acquainted with social media because you need to engage… but it’s a long-term commitment
“Social media is a tricky tool to get initially acquainted with and then it also quite tricky frankly to maintain an interest and engagement in what you are trying to say.” Razzouk saysSocial media can help build momentum for change beyond your own work or research. However, building audiences takes time, resilience and a willingness to learn both the technology and what content works. In addition, you must adapt to changing engagement points. For instance, in the current era, the challenge is to communicate about the coronavirus – which is what everyone appears to want to discuss – in a way that’s relevant to the climate change agenda.
Shouting from the rooftops is one thing, but making a demonstrable and measurable difference is quite another. Ultimately, there needs to be political will, civic action or investor interest, and ideally a combination of all three!
In the renewable energy sector, which not that long ago was not seen as a legitimate industry, there have been some signs of success. In Australia, for example, it was civic action that led to the installation of solar panels – in spite of government inertia they literally put their money on the rooftop. However, measuring the impact of social media is not always easy, even for somebody as vocal as Razzouk. “You know the level of engagement, you have the stats on that but you do not have the data on how behaviour has changed,” he says.
In 2020, rivers, seas and oceans are being contaminated by plastic, the ice caps are melting, and greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are at record levels, there is still plenty to shout about and plenty to change.
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Article by Kylie Ahern
Photo credit: Image supplied