Dr. Renee Lertzman is an applied researcher, speaker, instructor and strategic communications specialist who focuses on the deeper psychological dimensions of sustainability – charged issues requiring sensitive communications.
Her work – in the form of applied strategic communications, research design, workshops and seminars – targets how to generate real, lasting behavioral change. It is a systems-based psychosocial approach that is scalable, powerful and intensely probing. (It works.) She provides consultation internationally to a range of organizations, across sectors – governmental, private and public.
Dr. Lertzman’s work is founded on a meaning-centered approach, addressing behavioral change from the inside out. She designs strategic communications, research tools and systemic approaches to engagement that help generate the insights required for an innovative, solutions-based economy. She also designs and produces workshops and seminars for professionals seeking to deepen their understanding of the current psychological landscape, helping them assess new tools and approaches more critically and more effectively.
New approaches require new tools. She works with organizations to craft innovative approaches to “going deeper” and delivering richer insight and results. She is experienced at offering the following:
Communications design. Messaging; branding; educational materials; presentations.
Research and research tools. Designing online surveys/polls; focus groups; data analysis; ethnographic research. Development of white papers and independent research.
Staff development and university instruction. Graduate and undergraduate level, as well as webinars/seminars/workshops for stakeholders, staff and teams.
Clients include marketing agencies, design companies, engagement specialists, educators, consultants and anyone needing input on how to communicate more effectively around the charged topics of environment/climate change/consumption/sustainability.
Dr. Lertzman also coaches international governmental, private and public sector organizations, designing workshops and seminars tailored to specific needs regarding psychological dimensions of sustainability/environmental engagement. Her graduate courses on the psychological dimensions of environmental education and communication examine the issues of psychology and sustainability, offering practitioners tools and resources for working in this emerging field.
She teaches in Royal Roads University’s Master’s in Environmental Education and Communication (MEEC) and Master’s in Environmental Practice (MEP), where she gives courses on leadership, psychology and environmental communications and education; and has designed and taught unique courses on psychology and environment/climate change for Portland State University (Psychology Department and Communications Dept), and Lanzhou University, China. She is regularly requested to deliver guest lectures, keynotes and workshops to a range of professionals and students.
She has delivered keynote and invited presentations to the following:
Garrison Institute NW Hub; Natural History Museum, London; Communicate Now! Bristol Natural History Consortium; American Meteorological Society; Ministry of Environment for British Columbia; Meetings Professionals International (World Education Congress); National Association for Environmental Education; Deep Democracy Institute; University of College London, Energy Institute; National Center for Atmospheric Research; Garrison Institute’s Climate, Mind and Behavior symposium; Sustainable Brands; Sonoma State University; University of San Francisco; Lanzhou University, China; International Forum on Psychoanalysis and Education; Cogan Owens Cogan, Portland; Metro City of Portland, Social Sustainability Consortium, Portland and numerous others.
She has worked in the communications sector for twenty years since joining EcoNet/Institute of Global Communications, the first ISP to serve the environmental community. She has a doctorate in Psychosocial Studies from Cardiff University, and a Master’s in Environmental Communications from the University of North Carolina. Dr. Lertzman currently works with a range of organizations – public, private and governmental sectors – and delivers powerful results.
Her editorial work includes serving on the editorial board of Ecopsychology and she is also the Environment and Sustainability Editor for the international journal Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society. She has published widely in such magazines as The Sun Magazine, Orion Magazine, The Ecologist, Land and People and numerous others (clips available on request).
