Centre for Environmental Rights – Polluter Pays Report Design

The Centre for Environmental Rights (CER) is a non-profit organisation and law clinic that helps South African communities realise their constitutional right to a healthy environment. Its report “Polluter Pays for Climate Change Loss and Damage” makes a demanding, evidence-led case: that the catastrophic 2022 KwaZulu-Natal floods were intensified by climate change, and that the world’s largest emitters could be held legally accountable for the loss and damage. CER asked TEA for the report design and publication, to make a complex argument spanning attribution science, economics and law accessible to lawyers, policymakers and the public. We planned the document with our Publication Planner tool, ordering the science, the human impact and the legal reasoning into one clear line of argument before design began.

A report like this has to be rigorous and readable at once. We built a brand-aligned editorial system in CER’s identity, with clear section openers, oversized pull-quote typography and a two-column layout with marginal annotations, so a reader can follow the evidence without losing the thread. It is the publication design approach that lets a dense, technical argument land with weight and clarity.

The report’s argument rests on data, so we made the data legible. We created report-aligned infographics, information boxes and diagrams to present the human and economic toll, 443 lives lost, more than 26,000 homes damaged and around R17 billion in losses, alongside the attribution science showing that 71% of 504 studied extreme-weather events were intensified by climate change. This infographic design, set against documentary photography, keeps the human cost vivid while the evidence stays exact.

The report moves from climate attribution science to economic loss and damage to the legal routes for accountability, including the responsibility of the largest carbon-emitting companies. Designing that progression meant guiding the reader through technical and legal material in a considered sequence, with diagrams and callouts that clarify rather than decorate.

We delivered the report print-ready and as a digital PDF for legal, policy and civil-society audiences. It adds to our ongoing work with the client, including the Centre for Environmental Rights Impact Report.