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The Climate Fresk: A Workshop to Understand Climate Change

Understanding the climate emergency has become a major issue all over the world. However, the subject remains complex.

Companies, organizations and even governments are struggling to grasp it. The climate challenge must be taken up by all the players, and for that to happen, everyone needs to understand how it works and what is at stake.

To do this, a Frenchman, Cédric Ringenbach, had the ingenuity in 2015 to create a ‘serious game’ that allows, on the one hand, to understand the scientific basis of climate change, and, on the other hand, to discuss the issues and solutions.  The objective is to raise awareness so that participants adapt their behavior accordingly, both individually and collectively.

Three Hours to Understand Global Warming

As the workshop was immediately successful, an association was created in France in 2018. To date, more than 450,000 people have been ‘Fresked’ in France and abroad, and nearly 20,000 people have been trained to lead the workshop. The association aims to reach one million participants by the end of 2022. Not only have schools and individuals joined the movement, but also many companies and more recently politicians (208 candidates from all sides during the last legislative campaign of May 2022 in France).

The Climate Fresk is a fun and collaborative workshop, based on the scientific analysis compiled in the IPCC reports. Participants, from 4 to 7 people per group, are invited to position 42 cards in order of cause and effect, thus creating a systemic Fresk describing climate change. Afterwards, they are invited to discuss concrete solutions to be put in place. In the context of a company, this last part of the workshop can be adapted to initiate a global reflection leading to the definition of a sustainable development strategy.

The Climate Fresk in the United Arab Emirates

At the beginning of 2022, a collective of about 15 people was formed to develop the workshop in the Emirates. According to Alex Misseri, coordinator of the French association in the country, the objective is ‘that as many people as possible understand the issues related to climate change and act accordingly in their daily professional and personal lives. Many companies have already been won over by the workshop (Air France, Michelin, HSBC, PWC, EDF, Suez, etc.) and the collective expects a strong increase in interest in the subject and thus in the number of workshops conducted in the framework of COP 28, which will be held in the country in November 2023.

The Climate Fresk workshop is always very well received in companies. First of all, it is an excellent team-building tool: the workshop is easy to organize and promotes collaboration in good spirit. Secondly, it allows everyone to understand one of the most talked about phenomena in our society. Regardless of their level of knowledge on the subject, participants always leave the workshop having deepened their knowledge and with an overview of the issues at stake. Finally, it allows teams to get started on one of the most strategic subjects for any company today: sustainable development.