Ecoactivists upholding their ideas sometimes counter the society, state and business. How should eco community protect its interests in an eco-friendly way? Let’s figure it out based on a conflict that happened in Almaty because of a 7-metre-high balloon cat.
Pop a balloon cat
In April 2024, the ‘Forum’ mall in Almaty announced in social media that a balloon cat would be made in the mall and 5,000 balloons would be thrown from the upper floor in the mall atrium. After that, ecoactivists called on the ‘Forum’ to give up on the event due to its environmental unfriendliness.
‘Forum’ responded to the messages of activists and said that all balloons were biodegradable.
Translation of the screenshot
[Dear residents of Almaty,
We express our sincere appreciation for your civic-mindedness and active participation in reducing negative impact on the environment.
FORUM joins your concerns for our city and the environment. All the balloons used in the event have a compliance certificate, which confirms that they are made of natural latex and are biodegradable.
At the end of the event, we will ensure full transparency of the recycling procedure by providing everyone with an opportunity to watch the process of balloon degradation.
Please respect each other and hold back from insults.
Thank you for your understanding.]
Ecoactivists saw elements of greenwashing (environmental positioning of a commodity or service without sufficient reason) in this answer and began to write comments under the post.
“When ‘Forum’ closed comments, they started to use tags. ‘Forum’ began to block us. We began to study the case of harm of balloons in stories. Afterwards, organisers of the installation (the organiser was SL-KAZTRADE, author’s note) began to insult us. They wrote that we made a fuss about nothing,” said Meruert Salykova, representative of the ecocommunity.
Ecoactivists agreed to meet with representatives of ‘Forum’ mall and organiser of the installation – Maksim Savchin, director of SL-KAZTRADE, who involved aerodesigners from Russia to create the cat. According to ecoactivist Kamila Akimbekova, the meeting did not go well.
“We tried to explain Maksim that certificates do not prove the biodegradability of balloons,” Akimbekova said.
Maksim Savchin, in his comments to CABAR.asia, said the cat was ready for 60 per cent when there was a meeting with activists, and the remaining balloons were already inflated. As it is impossible to deflate balloons, the suspended installation did not decrease the amount of waste.
“We provided all we could: certificates, researches. But their main requirement was that the mall should prohibit the event, as ‘Forum’ must be green. They promised to boycott the mall, so that no one went there. Ecoactivists did not want children see it, not to implant the ideology of consumption into them,” Savchin said.
Ecoactivists have their own truth. According to them, participants of the meeting interrupted them, behaved aggressively. “Then [Aleksandr, aerodesigner of Russia] began to tear the balloon into pieces and chew them, ‘Here, no one will die from them.” We told ‘Forum’ that they could install the cat, but we won’t keep silent,” Akimbekova said.
As a result, the administration of the mall ordered to stop the installation, which was almost completed. After all, aerodesigners completed their job and popped all balloons at a time.
Ecoactivists celebrated their victory, while organisers and participants of the installation complained about the injustice encountered because of ecoactivists. ‘Losers’ tagged accounts of activists and urged “to fight them back”. Social media users started writing angry comments and using offensive language.
Here is one of the comments (sic): “Why don’t you fight bags, supermarkets, waste? Why do you care about the cat? People die in Karaganda because of mines, while you care about balloons, hypocrites!”
Also, ecoactivists were told that the balloons were harmless as they were biodegradable, and were accused of stealing children’s happiness.
How should they have built the campaign to avoid the ‘frontal collision’ with the wider public? CABAR.asia asked experts to tell about it.
“We simply do not pay attention”
, manager of the environmental society ‘Green Salvation’, has wide experience in confronting the state, society and business. Spatar answered the question about the measures taken by ‘Green Salvation’ to reduce the pressure from the outside:
“No measures. We understand that our viewpoint regarding some questions may not please many people. We regularly get negative feedbacks. We just do not pay attention and go on. It is important for us not to have our actions contradict the law. Any hate ceases over time.”
She cited as an example the campaign against the construction of the ski resort in the ‘Kok-Zhailau’ area near Almaty. Activists have been accused for 10 years, when there was a confrontation with authorities and business, of not being able to ski and therefore not liking the skiers. They do not want the country to develop. They suggested dealing with more serious problems like death of seals, leak of heptyl, air filtration.
“They wrote we were paid. The most ridiculous thing is that they first accused us of being paid for the Shymbulak (the functioning ski resort near Almaty – Author’s note) in order to not have another resort. Then they said that European resorts paid us so that Europeans remained in Europe and did not come to Kazakhstan,” said Spatar.
She advised to ecoactivists to assess risk in advance: “If you are not ready, you’d better not start anything, especially if you have a family. You should understand that there always would be people who are dissatisfied with your actions. Keep your goal, which you are striving for, in your head.”
Long–term work needed
Asel Karaulova, chair of the National PR Association of Kazakhstan, drew attention to the problem of brand building in environmental groups across Kazakhstan.
“The image of ecologists in our country leaves much to be desired,” she said. “They are often taken as weird people, who deal with strange topics and projects, hype, act out of line, and hinder usual business activities.”
Asel cited the founder of ‘EcoNetwork’, Evgeny Mukhamedzhanov, who systematically promotes the issue of recycling, as an example of successful positioning.
“His case can be studied from the very beginning. Evgeny used his personal brand to build the story and promoted it to the state agenda level. That is how all ecologists must work,” Asel Karaulova said.
Ex-PR director of ‘Mega’ mall, Darya Bublik, suggested that ecoactivists should consider all issues, insults, accusations as crisis points, which should be in the PR strategy of ecoactivists and which need to be worked through on a long-term basis.
“Crisis is a growth area, not the end of the world,” the PR specialist said. In other words, ecoactivists have some homework to do: collect all negative comments, group them and cope with them so that there would be no accusations in the future.
Bublik suggested the following examples:
- Not to be accused of hype, try to reach a compromise with all participants out of the public eye to avoid fever pitch;
- Not to celebrate the ‘victory’ loudly, if no compromise has been reached and there is a losing party;
- Hide personal profile, then there will be no accusations of hypocrisy (a photo with balloons taken seven years ago was found on the Instagram account of one of ecoactivists – Author’s note);
- Not to have accusations of the ecocommunity’s dealing with unreal problems, you need to think about the content strategy, profile design, so that all achievements and actions were visible.
According to Asel Karaulova, ecoactivists need to make efforts to have their intentions correctly taken by the public.
“The public has a poor understanding of the balloon problem: amid the disasters taking place in the country it seems insignificant. So, ecologists must take communications professionally: understand their target audience; assess risks; know what key messages to deliver; understand which communication channels are effective,” Karaulova said.
“It all went wrong” from the very first minute
PR specialists noted gaps on the part of the mall.
According to Darya Bublik, mistakes were made in the very beginning: “The first Forum’s communication was like, ‘Wow, we have so many balloons! The cat will be amazing!’ Once they gave the momentum, it all went wrong. If they understood the risks, the situation would have been different.”
According to Asel Karaulova, the PR service of the mall should have monitored public opinion before they gave consent to the installation and release of balloons.
“If they did it, they would know that the balloon issue poses a potential risk for the reputation. They should have consulted with ecologists and offer them a joint project to recycle the balloons or a post campaign to raise awareness, without driving the situation to confrontation.”
CABAR.asia asked questions to the mall to learn the attitude of ‘Forum’, but received no response.
Behaviour of the event guests, Russian aerodesigners, who installed the cat, added fuel to the fire. According to ecoactivists, they could have reached a compromise if it had not been for the provoking behaviour of the guests.
Asel Karaulova checked out all the comments, “The
demonstrate rather rude behaviour on social media, incorrect statements, arrogance, and it all has caused the hate. All Russian specialists coming to work to Kazakhstan need to study the public situation first, local particularities and traditions, and they should behave in a civilised manner and intelligently. Then we can avoid hate.”
The main thing that all participants lacked was a skill to negotiate, focus on common, not personal, advantage. This is the opinion of Dana Saudegerova, specialist in strategic communications.
“It is important to interact and find common values in any disputes between activists and business/state. In this situation, common values are emotions, joy of visitors, the unprecedented art event. The parties should have consolidated and reached a compromise. For example, use of balloons made of eco-friendly materials, correct recycling of balloons, explanation to visitors of how to handle balloons in an eco-friendly manner,” Saudegerova said.
Main illustration: photo of a cat from social networks