Who is your sustainability story speaking to?
Having worked in this space since 2008, I’d say most communications I see are still targeted at meerkats: a small subset of the population who are hyper-tuned to spot existential threats and will alert their clan via niche WhatsApp groups in seconds.
The truth is, whatever sustainability message is broadcast, meerkats will turn their heads. How do I know? Because I self-identify as one.
Now let’s focus our binoculars on ostriches. Heads in the sand, seemingly unwilling to listen or engage with our message, no matter how shrill we shout. How much of the sustainability professional’s psyche is still rooted in perpetual combat with their feathered climate deniers? In lockjaw with Bjørn Lomborg, among others?
Have we ever truly moved beyond trying to convince them that the science is irrefutable? Proving someone wrong is never a good starting point for communication — and that scent of righteous rhetoric still lingers in the air. So let’s put ostriches to the back of our minds for a moment. They do listen, just not to us.
Now let’s turn our gaze to the wildebeest. They carpet the savannah from horizon to horizon, heads down, minding their own business. They are the forgotten masses: numerous and normal. They migrate as one — not because of fear of an existential threat, or a sense of doing the right thing, but because of self-interest; the innate drive to find greener pastures.
So next time you start a sustainability story by explaining the science, or slip in a mention of 1.5°C of warming above pre-industrial levels, picture the wildebeest. Almost every sustainable behaviour change I know of results in greener pastures for the masses — we just need to sell it as such.
And what about the ostriches? Even with their heads in the sand, when they feel the tremors of a million hooves moving as one, they too will move fast.
