Coordinated unprecedented scale at Climate Week 2024
The Challenge
The Environmental Defense Fund needed to coordinate a unified organizational presence across Climate Week NYC 2024—executing 74 events (including 6 flagship events), managing 16 speaking engagements, and integrating 15 specialized workstream teams—while maintaining consistent messaging, brand cohesion, and strategic alignment with EDF’s multi-year ‘Road to COP30’ initiative. With over 30 staff members across Marketing, Communications, Development, and Mission teams participating, the organization required expert coordination to transform what could have been fragmented activities into a cohesive, high-impact campaign that positioned EDF as a global climate leader.
Strategic Approach
Fuzieh provided comprehensive management and strategic implementation through the ‘One EDF’ campaign framework:
Cross-Functional Campaign Leadership: Led the core MarComm team as primary decision-maker, conducting weekly coordination meetings with the Multilateral/Global Engagement & Partnerships team and separate weekly meetings with Marketing, Communications, and Development staff to ensure alignment with EDF’s Road to COP30 strategy and maintain consistent messaging across all platforms.
Integrated Workstream Management: Coordinated 15 specialized teams (Advertising, Analytics & Reporting, Brand Writing, Creative & Design, Donor Communications, Donor Engagement & Events, Editorial Content, Messaging, Global Media & Earned Media, Internal Communications, Membership, Photo & Video, Social Media, Thought Leadership, and Website Operations) to deliver cohesive marketing and communications support across all 44 events spanning September 22–October 1, 2024.
Strategic Event Production: Oversaw flagship event planning at Convene venues and offsite locations, managing vendor relationships, brand consistency, logistics coordination, and technical dry runs to ensure seamless execution of high-profile events, including the IEA-COP29 Presidency Event on methane pledges and multi-stakeholder roundtables on food systems, forests, hydrogen investment, and corporate net-zero action.
Monitoring & Evaluation Framework: Implemented formal post-event surveys across 11 events to gather participant feedback, assess satisfaction levels, evaluate accessibility and inclusivity, measure engagement value, and track trends for continuous improvement—establishing a systematic approach to event quality assessment.
Realized Impact
The September 2024 Climate Week NYC engagement successfully positioned EDF as a convenor and thought leader across energy transition, corporate climate action, food systems, forest conservation, and clean air policy. The coordinated ‘One EDF’ approach created a unified organizational presence during the world’s largest annual climate event, demonstrating how strategic campaign management can amplify impact across dozens of simultaneous activities. The systematic coordination structure—from weekly alignment meetings to integrated workstream management to formal evaluation frameworks—created a replicable model for large-scale organizational presence at international climate convenings, setting the foundation for continued momentum through Biodiversity COP16 and COP29 toward the critical COP30 gathering in Brazil.