Storytelling: the crucial component to selling sustainability

Feeling the buzz

London Climate Action Week. Given the political, social and environmental state of our world today, I walked into the week with hope, energy, but also a little apprehension. As we spoke about before the event there are some ambitious goals ahead of us to reach COP29 targets and many barriers to overcome as a society. .

Thankfully, I left Reset Connect with a huge buzz fuelled by the masses of transformative strategies, innovation and inspiring people that were present. Imagine being able to say goodbye to polystyrene packaging? The science and engineering of UK-based Magical Mushroom Co. is doing it, at an impressive scale.

Challenger brands like Byoms from Copenhagen have harnessed probiotics across a range of household and personal care products in a wonderfully fragrant way. Not just eliminate harmful ingredients for the planet, but also catering to busy lifestyles with convenience too.

The research that the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology underpins environmental policies, commercial innovation and conservation action all around the world. Their ability to see opportunities and solutions for emerging environmental challenges like their Blue Carbon and Saltmarsh Research is fascinating.

Calculating the impact of a product or service is very different to trying to wrap up an entire experience with a number. Events, their impact and how to measure, offset and improve on is something that One Tribe have tackled brilliantly with their ECØS platform.   

Everywhere you look, people, brands and organisations are really stepping up to the plate, and encouraging stories of climate resilience are unfolding.

Selling Sustainability with storytelling

Speaking of stories, it was the central theme of the talk that Dorothy Shaver and I gave at the Food Systems Hub this week. As I said in my opening statement, talking about ‘selling sustainability’ feels obtuse given the increasingly fragile state of our food system.

However, we recognise that framing sustainability in the right way, with a compelling story backed by real action, can make a huge difference to how it lands with your audience.

Dorothy highlighted a very important message, which she speaks lyrically about through the fable Stone Soup as an analogy of our complex food system. “It’s really about encouraging symbiotic collaboration. None of us can do this alone, and we absolutely know that”. 

Collaboration, plus a clear and compelling story, has been critical in the work that Dorothy has done at Unilever to drive behaviour change and investment. Encouraging consumers to reconsider the types of food they eat through the Knorr Future 50 Foods recipe book was one example shared. Creative storytelling has also been a successful vessel for change with projects in Nigeria and Ethiopia that engaged local communities through means of dancing and radio to communicate change.

That’s what we as communicators must do to better sell sustainability to the masses and achieve mainstream green: start reframing the narrative around sustainability for it to land with more resonance and inspire real change.  

Here are the two tips we shared in our talk in case you missed it:

MAKE IT TANGIBLE

Most sustainability claims are abstract concepts which are hard for people to grasp, X amount of water saved, acres rewilded etc., aren’t measures that are easy to picture. When we say you need to make it tangible, we mean framing your impact and efforts in a way that your audience can understand.

Most teenagers can’t fathom what saving 1000 kilowatts in your factory means, but they do know what spending 10 hours doom-scrolling on their phones feels like. Sucks the energy right out of you.

MAKE IT CONNECT

Many people talk about sustainability as its own entity in terms of ‘a benefit’ but sustainable practices can carry more value when they are linked to the inherent traits of your category. It’s taste in food, efficacy in skincare, comfort and durability in clothing. These are things that people inherently care about, that influence decision-making.

This is about changing belief systems and getting people to change their behaviour. So, we need to put ourselves in the shoes of the audience and use sustainability as a vessel to connect to their values.

If you would like our 6 quick tips under these themes, you can request the full presentation by emailing: theteam@catchafireagency.com

In the meantime, I’ll leave you with this…

“Key to the work of changing the world is changing the story” – Rebecca Solnit

Interested in learning more and how to tell your story? Get in touch today.

Andy Jordan, Senior Growth Director: andy.jordan@catchafireagency.com