Who Cares About The Future?
How to avoid the most common sustainability storytelling mistake
In this issue:
Why storytelling matters in business
Why sustainability storytelling is tricky — and how avoid the most common mistake
The power of “who” for business growth and impact
Good storytelling is good business. It’s the best way to relate to people, get them interested, help them remember you, and motivate them to act.
Want proof? The sluggish pace of the energy transition and continued reliance on fossil fuels is the result of a decades-long narrative strategy that is netting tens of billions in profit for oil companies. Meanwhile, the last 15 months on this planet have been the hottest on record — again.
Storytelling becomes even more important — and trickier
…for businesses seeking to have a positive environmental/societal impact AND make money. The mission itself can often take center stage without addressing the immediate needs and concerns of the audience.
Yes, the world is on fire. But people are also overworked, underpaid, and struggling to find healthcare, childcare, affordable housing, oh and something cute (and durable) to wear.
Meanwhile, change scares people. New things look risky, weird, and often undesirable. So it’s hard to be first.
It’s harder still when you’re trying to address a complex and growing crisis, you know you’re right, and you have the data to back up your position… yet most people just don’t seem to “get it.”
The thing is, people make decisions with their emotions, and justify them with logic.
So your stories have to appeal to both reason and feelings — more importantly, you have to show how your work fits in your client's current world, and you have to address their concerns.
Historically, this has been a stumbling block in sustainability. As climate branding strategist Topher Burns told us,
“My criticism of the sustainability space in general is that it’s often not terribly empathetic. For an industry that cares deeply about the fate of the Earth, it can overlook the perspective and concerns of the humans that it’s trying to talk to.”
You can go further faster with stories, messages, and relationship-building strategies that connect with the needs, desires, and concerns of your stakeholders. This requires strategic thinking, planning, and a concerted effort to deeply understand the various audiences you have to work with. (Hot tip: many people care about saving money. Most people care about their health and their children.)
Remember Storytelling Fundamental #1: Get to Know Your Audience
As a business leader, the value of your great idea is obvious — to you.
But to achieve your goals, you’ll spend years convincing an array of stakeholders (clients, investors, partners, employees, media, influencers, etc.) that what you’re doing is valuable enough TO THEM that they’ll feel compelled to contribute their precious time, attention, energy, and/or resources.
That’s why you have to be world-class at expressing yourself in a way each of those stakeholders can quickly grasp, get behind, and share.
Remember that everyone is asking themselves, “What’s in it for me?”
If you want your communication efforts to drive people to take action, you must first do two things:
understand who you’re talking with
connect to what they care about
Then you can build an effective narrative that is tailored to your audience. Figure out what you’re bringing to the table, and how it solves a problem for your key audiences.
Customers, investors, and partners have distinct concerns and desires you’ll need to address in different ways. There are also policy makers, community leaders, and the general public to consider.
Gaining an understanding of your audiences takes some effort, but it’s one of the highest ROI activities you can engage in for your business. So how do you do it?
Define the known, key characteristics of each target audience.
Research existing market data.
Find people within your target audience.Make connections and get introductions any way you can!
Listen and learn.
The questions you ask will vary from group to group and individual to individual, but the goal is always to understand what they’re dealing with and how they see the world.
This kind of information from these conversations is GOLD — collect it and analyze it for patterns. It should inform all your messaging.
Pay attention to the specific words and phrases people use to articulate their perspective. You’ll notice it usually won’t include the technical concepts or jargon you might be tempted to employ. Keep that in mind as you craft your narrative!
(Note: We’ll cover this in much more detail in future posts and in our forthcoming book!)
Wrap-Up: Make Sustainability Personal
Humanity needs to find new ways to operate that align with how our one-and-only home planet functions. Fortunately, this also offers unprecedented market opportunities.
The key is to remember it’s not about you — it’s about what your company or sustainability initiative can do for the other person, while also supporting a livable planet.
Looking at the big picture of the climate crisis can be overwhelming, but homing in on a specific message for a specific person is much more manageable… and much more effective!
Stories That Caught Our Eye:
This story about a glacial collapse in Greenland, which resulted in a 9 day tsunami that shook the world. It presented the massive size of this event in a clear, if frightening, way.
“One of the hardest things about climate and energy transition work (and climate and energy transition communications work) is that the main ‘wins’ to point to are the avoidance of even worse outcomes.”
Thanks to Laura Fitton for contributing to this piece.