Ongoing communications · Furnas
Community communication for the Itapeti-Nordeste transmission line
Community communication for a Furnas transmission line project in Greater São Paulo: an ombudsman service, resident visits and talks for nearly 2,000 students.
Photo: Forest Criações field team
- Client
- Furnas
- Year
- 2014 to 2015
- Territory
- Mogi das Cruzes and Itaquaquecetuba (SP), São Paulo Metropolitan Region
- Format
- Community communication program for environmental licensing
The challenge
The construction of a 29 km transmission line between Mogi das Cruzes and Itaquaquecetuba crossed neighborhoods, gated communities and rural properties. Projects like this raise doubts and rumors about safety, expropriation and living near the line. Environmental licensing required an ongoing community communication program able to inform the population, receive complaints and respond quickly.
What we did
What we delivered
- Work plan
- Resident communicator in the field
- Ombudsman service by toll-free phone and email
- Information visits along the line
- Talks at schools
- Monthly clipping and bimonthly reports
We set up and ran the program in the field for nine months. A resident communicator visited landowners, building managers and residents along the route, shared information about the construction phases and the line's energization, and logged every request in a spreadsheet with a response time of up to 72 hours. We set up a toll-free ombudsman line, kept the stakeholder list up to date and worked alongside the project's other environmental programs.
In schools, we created an interactive exhibition with a video, a quiz game, a debate and a model of an "energized little house" to talk about living near the line and saving energy and water.
Outcome
There were 15 talks at schools in the region, with 1,992 students. The bimonthly reports record that the program's licensing targets were met throughout.
