In order to concept and practice of Conscious Consumption, Akatu works on two fronts: Communication and Education, using various channels to dialogue with different publics, as shown in the following figure, called “a star” of Akatu activities.

Understanding the Akatu activities star

The middle of the star

In the middle of the star are the key elements for Akatu work to be developed:

a.      Contents worked by Akatu, always from the conscious consumption viewpoint, involving the topics relating to sustainability, consumption, consumer impacts on society and nature, and the basic topics that are a open door for discussing concepts and practice of conscious consumption, such as articles, news items, textbooks, books, flyers, posters and any other kind of text that can be used for publicising Conscious Consumption;

b.      Pedagogies, created by Akatu, used as a method to sensitise and mobilise people and communities to conscious consumption. The Pedagogies instruct how Akatu publicity, information and education material should be created, on questions of relevance, interdependence, daily life, citizenship and consumer role models.

c.       Studies about Brazilian consumers, their behaviour and motivations, seeking to identify the current status of consciousness in consumption, consumer problems and potential to change consumer behaviour. Also, studies on the current status of corporate social responsibility in order to introduce it to the consumers and sensitize and mobilise them to consider it as a guidelines in their purchasing decisions.

d.      Metrics to measure the status of consciousness of Brazilian consumers in their consumer behaviour, and to measure the corporate social responsibility in order to make it more understandable for the consumer.

e.       Classroom and virtual games, addressing the different themes on sustainability and consumption, to be used in the community capacity building processes for conscious consumption.

f.        Group dynamics to be used in the community capacity building processes for conscious consumption.

g.      Methodologies that are used to assess and systematise the knowledge and experiences of Akatu in the different working areas, to set up dynamic open models that may be an inspiration for sensitization and mobilisation toward large-scale conscious consumption. 

The elements in the middle of the star lead to the different Akatu activities, starting with the Portal, Events, Publications and Talks, which are the first way to disseminate these different elements to various publics interested in developing conscious consumption.

•    Portal: Akatu runs a portal with the following content:

a)     features on a wide variety of Conscious Consumption-related topics

b)     tips and instructions on action for people who are interested in the practice of Conscious Consumption

c)      Akatu publications for download

d)     brief description of the projects run by Akatu

e)      educational cartoons about Conscious Consumption for download

f)       Akatu advertising campaigns for download

g)     Conscious Consumer Test and Indicators by which internauts can assess how consumer conscious they are

h)     Akatu Scale of Corporate Social Responsibility, by which the internaut can learn the key elements of this theme and the practices of companies that completed the Scale in the portal

i)       Akatu Library on Conscious Consumption, with recoverable contents of articles, subjects and information about conscious consumption

j)       Forum: area in which Akatu asks the internauts for their opinions on current topics relating to conscious consumption

k)     Opinion poll: area in which internauts answer the questions on their consumer practices and have access to the average internaut answers.

•    Events organized by Akatu , such as participating in trade shows, exhibitions, conventions, festivals, shows, etc., where conscious consumption is disseminated.

•    Publications: published by Akatu, such as Thematic Notebooks and Dialogues (debate records), on subjects referring to Conscious Consumption. In addition to printouts and flyers, these publications are also available for the public on the Akatu website. 

•   Talks: Akatu gives talks at a number of private and public events to disseminate the concept and practices of Conscious Consumption.

In addition to the above activities, Akatu works on its focal points – Communication and Education – where it seeks to work with opinion-makers that are ready to convey to their publics the message of conscious consumption in different formats. In such cases, Akatu does not work directly with the end-consumer public influenced by opinion-makers. 

The following are the opinion-makers that work together with Akatu: communication media, disseminator companies, publicity, community and educational leaders.  On the other hand, Akatu does directly act with the end-consumer on the focal points concerning social mobilisation.

The Akatu activities segmented in the Communication and Education blocks, some of them covering both blocks, are described below:

Communication

This work is done by supplying general content on conscious consumption designed for a wide range of publics, either indirectly through opinion-makers, or work done directly by Akatu with these publics. 

Communication is provided through the following central topics:

•   Social mobilisation: Akatu organizes public events, such as exhibitions, prize-winning contests, and book launches, for example. At these events, the concept of Conscious Consumption is disseminated in different ways, using the actual content of the events and by media available at these events, namely, distributing leaflets, posters and so on.

•    Disseminator companies: Akatu is given support by various corporate partners. These companies regularly undertake activities in conjunction with Akatu to disseminate Conscious Consumption among their employees, consumers, clients and suppliers. In these processes, the companies act as agents for disseminating the concept and practices of Conscious Consumption among these publics.

•    Publicity: advertising campaigns focusing on sensitizing for the topic of Conscious Consumption, broadcasting in advertising format, pro bono, in newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, Internet and billboards.

•    Communication media: supply of content for the different mass media – TV, radio, magazines, newspapers, Internet – to be used in subjects produced by the communication organization teams. In addition, production of material through the communication structure and Akatu’s own content also publicised through communication media, in addition to interviews given by the Akatu staff to press organs.

Education

Work done, using more in-depth and detailed specific content, generally structured in topics and designed for specific publics with which Akatu has direct contact, either with end-consumers or multipliers of the conscious consumption concept and practices.

These activities involve the following key points: 

•    Social mobilisation: Akatu produces specific materials depending on the nature of the mobilizing event, in order to make the end-consumer conscious by impacting sensorial and intellectual experiences. 

•    Educational institutions: Akatu builds capacity using methodologies, materials, pedagogies, games and dynamics in order to sensitize and mobilise teachers, pupils, parents and employees of educational institutions, and build the capacity of multipliers between these publics to work on conscious consumption.

•    Communities: Akatu undertakes dissemination and capacity-building projects for Conscious Consumption in specific communities, such as company employees, workers in a cooperative, dwellers in a certain region, students at a certain university. In these projects the aim is to build the capacity of a group of volunteers so that they can act as multipliers of conscious consumption with the publics in everyday contact, in projects designed according to the profile of each community, considering the different grades of learning, characteristics, interests and requirements.

•    Communication media: in different cases, the communication media are interested in going further in the topic of Conscious Consumption and allocate educational spaces for this work, for example, in TV, radio, newspapers and magazines, or the Internet. In such cases, Akatu develops specific learning materials to disseminate to the general public.

Through this mosaic of Communication and Education activities, shown in the figure above, Akatu Institute seeks to transform each consumer act in a good seed for building a better world.