Effective net-zero communication: Professor Regina Chen awarded Research Network Grant for trilateral study

Professor Regina Chen, Head of the Department of Communication Studies, has been awarded the Research Network Grant under the Leading House Asia Pacific 2025 Funding Call. This competitive grant provides CHF 50,000 (approximately HK$500,000) to support Professor Chen’s co-led project with Professor Nadine Strauss (University of Zurich) and Professors Flora Hung-Baesecke and Martin Bryant (University of Technology Sydney).

The awarded project, “Communicating Net-Zero Effectively: A Trilateral Research Network Across Switzerland, Hong Kong, and Australia”, examines how companies in these three regions communicate their net-zero ambitions and how these strategies can engage both corporations and the public more effectively. As political backlash, regulatory pressure, and greenwashing concerns mount, transparent and credible communication has become vital for maintaining corporate legitimacy, public trust, and impact.

Using the Net-Zero Communication Model, the research analyses the micro-, meso-, and macro-level factors that drive companies to share or hide their climate goals—a phenomenon known as greenhushing. It also maps out how communication strategies, values, and emotional rhetoric vary across these three distinct national and cultural contexts.

To bridge the gap between corporate messaging and public perception and consequential action, the study investigates how different audience segments respond to various communication styles, pinpointing what builds trust or triggers scepticism. The trilateral research network will collaborate with interdisciplinary experts across design, architecture, and AI-driven research to create culturally adapted, visually rich and effective communication practices and tools. By combining comparative analysis with AI-research design, the project aims to deliver actionable insights and strategies that prevent greenwashing, sustain public motivation, facilitate public action and support effective climate policymaking during a critical period of transition.

Administered by the Leading House Asia Pacific at the University of Zurich, the Research Network Grant supports the establishment of trilateral or multilateral research networks in the Asia-Pacific and enables Swiss-based project leads to develop joint research initiatives or centre-to-centre links with regional universities and research institutes.

Professor Chen’s research profile:  https://scholars.hkbu.edu.hk/en/persons/YRCHEN/projects/