Writing For Environmental Causes

“Our messaging is not working” Enrique Ortiz, a veteran conservationist and founding member of the Andes Amazon Fund, has spent decades translating the complexities of ecosystems into action. But in his recent commentary for Mongabay, he issues a striking critique—not of science itself, but of how it’s conveyed. “Facts are not the most important part,” Ortiz writes. “The current narrative needs a re-thinking.” That rethinking, he argues, begins not with more data, but with deeper insight into how people process information, make decisions, and respond emotionally to the world around them. Ortiz’s concern is not that people are unaware of climate change. In fact, the majority of the global population acknowledges it. But many remain unmoved, caught in a web of abstract language, ideological filters, and emotional distance. Scientific accuracy, while essential, often falters in the face of cognitive and cultural barriers. Ortiz points to the findings of cognitive scientists and neuroscientists: facts rarely shift belief systems. Instead, people gravitate toward stories, experiences, and social cues. “When facing uncertainty,” he notes, “humans make decisions that are satisfactory, rather than optimal.” This disconnect, Ortiz argues, is especially clear in environmental communication. Words like “rewilding,” “green,” or “ecological” may have once inspired clarity, but have since become muddled through overuse or conflicting interpretations. Worse, they sometimes trigger skepticism or backlash. In this fog of abstraction, the human connection is lost. What’s needed, Ortiz suggests, is a new narrative strategy—one that harnesses the emotional power of stories and speaks to how people actually think and feel. He draws from his own experience as an educator: while his lectures on plant-animal interactions faded from memory, it was the stories that lingered. This phenomenon, known as “narrative transportation,” isn’t mere sentimentality. It’s a neurological reality that helps ideas stick—and decisions shift. Rather than continuing to warn of catastrophe, Ortiz believes we should share stories of adaptation and resilience. From Andean farmers modifying how they grow quinoa and potatoes, to everyday consumers making environmentally conscious choices, these narratives offer agency and hope. They bridge divides and foster shared values. “Our messaging is not working,” Ortiz writes bluntly. “We need a revolution in narratives—and in how we tell them.” That revolution may begin not in the lab or the newsroom, but in the quiet space where empathy meets understanding—and where change can finally take root. 📰 His piece: https://lnkd.in/gmrWBcc5 📸 Hoatzin. My photo.

Silence on sustainability is not strategy Clarity, not caution, drives impact 🌎 Great read today in Harvard Business Review exploring how companies can strengthen their sustainability communications in response to rising political pressure and evolving stakeholder expectations. Rather than retreating or reducing visibility, the authors make a strong case for rethinking communication as a strategic tool to build trust, enhance relevance, and unlock the full value of sustainability efforts. While some organizations are choosing silence to avoid scrutiny (from political backlash to accusations of greenwashing) this approach can undermine credibility. Public concern about climate inaction remains high, and companies that choose not to speak risk appearing disengaged. At the same time, sustainability strategies are increasingly linked to tangible business outcomes, from cost savings and resource efficiency to supply chain resilience and long-term risk management. To respond effectively, companies must begin by understanding what matters to their audiences. This means moving beyond general assumptions and using employee and customer insights to shape communication that is specific, relevant, and grounded in lived experience. Boston Children’s Hospital offers a clear example of how stakeholder input can guide both communications and operational decisions in ways that enhance internal alignment and external resonance. Equally important is the way messages are delivered. While factual accuracy is critical, the most effective communications also connect emotionally, using storytelling to make abstract issues relatable. The article emphasizes the power of framing climate action in terms of widely held values (such as protecting future generations or ensuring business continuity) to reach broader audiences and avoid polarizing debates. Companies also need to move beyond the conventional sustainability report. While compliance remains necessary, relying solely on annual disclosures can limit impact. Organizations like Tillamook and Boston Medical Center are showing how digital formats and multi-channel content can make complex information more accessible, and how continuous storytelling can keep sustainability top of mind across stakeholder groups. By grounding their messages in real insights, using language that resonates across audiences, and choosing formats that encourage dialogue and connection, companies can position themselves as credible leaders in a space where expectations are only becoming more complex. #sustainability #sustainable #esg #business #greenwashing #greenhushing

We have been telling people the world is ending. And then wondering why they feel paralyzed. A review published in Sustainable Development, by Su, Kaburu, and colleagues across institutions in China, Ireland, Australia, Brazil, and beyond, takes on one of the quieter contradictions in climate action: the communication strategies meant to mobilize people may be actively undermining their capacity to act. The argument is not that climate urgency is overstated. It is that fear, deployed as the default register of climate messaging, produces a paradox. It captures attention, briefly, and then generates the very psychological conditions that make sustained engagement impossible. Eco-anxiety, helplessness, climate doomism, the belief that it is already too late and that responsibility therefore belongs to no one, are not failures of audience character. They are predictable responses to a communication environment that offers apocalypse without agency. The numbers are uncomfortable to sit with. A survey of 10,000 young people across 10 countries found that 59% were very or extremely worried about climate change, and over half reported feeling sad, anxious, angry, powerless, or guilty. These are not people who lack awareness. They are people drowning in it, without a clear sense of what their hands can actually do. The paper proposes a reorientation: toward messaging that is positive, personal, and people-centred. Positive, not in the sense of denial or false reassurance, but in the psychological sense, mobilizing hope, curiosity, and joy as motivational states rather than fear and guilt. Personal, meaning closing the distance between the crisis and the individual, moving away from glaciers and polar bears toward the concrete texture of daily life, health, food, cost of living, the morning coffee. People-centred, meaning grounded in what people can actually do, within their real agency and real constraints. This is precisely where Eco-Affective Health thinking enters. The field has long understood that emotional states are not incidental to environmental behavior. They are the medium through which the relationship between people and their environment is negotiated. Fear activates threat responses, which can produce short bursts of protective action, but sustained engagement with a long-horizon problem like climate change requires something different: a felt sense of efficacy, of connection, of meaning. These are broaden-and-build emotions, as the paper frames it, states that expand the repertoire of possible responses rather than narrowing it to fight or flight. Article link: https://lnkd.in/d98vMNAG Follow our work at ewahlab.com #EWAHLab #EcoAffectiveHealth #ClimateCommunication #ClimateAnxiety #PlanetaryHealth #ClimateMentalHealth #EcoAnxiety #ClimateAction #EnvironmentalPsychology #PublicHealth #GlobalSouth

Anyone trying to drive meaningful change – environmental or otherwise – must address this first: We must change human behaviour. This is why I’m such a stickler for storytelling. A few weeks ago, I was at a Lincoln University Centre of Excellence in Transformative Agribusiness event where Prof. Marijn Poortvliet from Wageningen University & Research spoke about risk perception. Whenever we decide whether or not to do something – big or small – we’re weighing up perceived risk. Perceived Probability x Perceived Consequences = Risk Perception Add ‘perceived’ in front of each word, and risk becomes a personal decision. That’s why it can be so hard to convince people to change, even when the facts are known. If we can work with how humans perceive risk, we stand a better chance of influencing change. Marijn discussed the Extended Parallel Process Model (Witte, 1992) which outlines the conditions required for behaviour change: 🟦 Perceived Threat: • Susceptibility – How vulnerable we feel to it • Severity – How serious we believe it is If there’s no perceived threat, no action is taken. 🟦 Perceived Efficacy: • Self-efficacy – Can I do what’s needed? • Response efficacy – Will my efforts be enough? Low efficacy = fear and inaction. High efficacy = behaviour change. This is why storytelling matters. It helps people see the threat (or opportunity) and understand how they can respond. It reminds me of a post I once saw but unfortunately can’t remember the author of: People change when you make sustainability: • Personally relevant • Emotionally compelling • Immediately beneficial Building on that saying in alignment with the EPPM flow model, here’s how to apply this thinking to your own sustainability communication. 1️⃣ Make it personally relevant Show how the issue affects people’s lives, values, or livelihoods – not just “the planet” in abstract terms. (Susceptibility) 2️⃣ Make the threat real, but not paralysing Balance severity with hope. If people only see the doom, they switch off. (Severity) 3️⃣ Show a clear, doable path Help people believe they can act (self-efficacy) and that their action will make a difference (response efficacy). 4️⃣ Make the benefits immediate and meaningful Change sticks when it’s not only “good for the planet” but also good for them. Show how the change can save money, build community, or protect something they love. 💡Next time, ask yourself: • What risk or opportunity am I asking people to pay attention to? • How can I help them see it, feel it, and respond to it? Do that, and you’re not just sharing information, you’re changing behaviour. __________ Image: Susannah Hertrich, (2008). “Reality Checking Device”. The top circles show perceived risk versus actual risk below. #BehaviourChange #SustainabilityStorytelling #ScienceCommunication #RiskPerception

Lately I’ve been obsessed with this question: Why do some climate messages move people—and others don’t? In a new episode of Bloomberg Television's new show Quantum Marketing by Raja Rajamannar, Pranav Yadav (CEO of Neuro-Insight) breaks down how the brain actually responds to storytelling—and how that applies to climate advocacy. Around the 17-minute mark, he analyzes a well-produced climate ad and explains, through neuromarketing data, why it doesn’t stick. The key insight? Psychological distance. The ad talks about climate change, but not in a way that connects to people's personal context—what they care about in their day-to-day lives. And when something feels distant—geographically, emotionally, or temporally—the brain tunes it out. It fails to encode in memory, which means it doesn’t influence behavior. What does work? Stories that activate memory encoding by making the stakes immediate and relatable. That connect to identity, not just intellect. That meet people where they are—then move them. This kind of research lights me up. It’s why I believe we’re at an inflection point in climate storytelling. At TIME, we’re working to reframe climate not just as an environmental issue, but as an economic one. A human one. A business one. If you're doing research in this space—neuroscience, behavioral design, storytelling strategy—or want to help us build a better framework for climate narratives, let’s talk. We need to scale these insights and we have the tools to do it. Watch the whole video but especially the last bit after 17 min if you're thinking about how to communicate urgency, value, and impact in this moment. 🎥 https://lnkd.in/et_uK4c6 #climatecommunications #neuromarketing #behaviorchange #storytelling #TIME #climateaction #businesscaseforclimate

Lately I’ve been thinking about how numb people can feel at times like these — to climate, to politics, to loss. We’re surrounded by dire news and despair language that drains our agency. Now more than ever, the way we talk about solutions matters, because people only invest in things they believe still have power. The ocean is a perfect example: many still describe it as if it’s distant, scenic, and sentimental. In reality, it’s one of the most potent systems we have left. Our communications should reflect that. Here are three shifts that could help: Replace “problem language” with “power language.” Not “the ocean is dying,” but “the ocean is our strongest untapped climate engine — absorbing heat, protecting coasts, storing carbon.” People invest in assets, not casualties. Talk in terms of human systems, not scenery. Not “save the coral.” Try “ocean breakdown increases food prices, disaster costs, and insurance risk.” Move the ocean out of the postcard and into people’s daily lives. Make scale legible through the choices people actually make. Show how offshore permitting, shipping rules, and seafood choices literally shape coastal futures. Ocean policy is not niche — it’s invisible infrastructure under everything. I'm not telling you anything new. It's just a reminder that if we change how we talk about the ocean or climate change, national parks or endangered species, we change who sees themselves in the work — and therefore who shows up to act.

We need to stop communicating climate change as a standalone environmental issue and start communicating it as a lens through which every aspect of society is understood. That was my takeaway from the Reporting Climate Change event at London Climate Action Week. People don't experience climate change through "climate". They experience it through food prices, housing, health, migration, sport, insurance, jobs, infrastructure and the cost of living. A few lessons that stood out. 1. Meet people where they already are. The audience isn't waiting to click on a "Climate" section. If someone cares about football, farming, parenting, local politics or business, those are the entry points. The task isn't to persuade people to care about climate change. It's to reveal the climate dimensions of things they already care about. 2. Stop leading with doom. Lead with agency. People need to understand the scale of the challenge, but they also need to know what can be done. The most effective communication doesn't ask, "How bad is this getting?" It asks: What's being done? What's working? and what can others learn from it? Solutions journalism isn't optimism or greenwashing. It's rigorous reporting that investigates responses alongside the problems. 3. Our visuals often undermine our message. One discussion focused on heatwave coverage. We frequently pair stories about public health risks with images of people eating ice cream or enjoying the beach. The text says: this is dangerous. The image says: this is a lovely summer day. If we want people to understand climate risk, we need to show: who is affected; who is vulnerable; how people are adapting and what resilience actually looks like. 4. The voices missing from the conversation often aren't silent at all. Farmers, local communities, ethnic media, artists, regional journalists and young people are already discussing climate. The challenge isn't always giving people a voice. It's recognising the voices that already exist and making space for them in the mainstream narrative. 5. Climate comms is fundamentally about trust. Trust requires time to understand communities, understand local context and build relationships before asking people to tell their stories. In an attention economy built around speed, that feels increasingly difficult, but also increasingly necessary.

We all participate in doom-scrolling and see climate headlines that leave us feeling helpless daily. So it’s no surprise that climate messaging that is purely data-based often fails to drive action. Here’s why: 1. Our brains are wired for stories, not statistics Climate data alone activates the analytical part of our brain, but decisions are driven by our emotions. For example: ❌ "1.5°C of warming" may not evoke much. ✅"Children born today will never experience a normal snow season in their hometown" instantly creates an emotional connection. 2. We’re overwhelming people with problems, not empowering them with solutions ❌ "Arctic ice is melting at unprecedented rates" creates anxiety. ✅ "Cities are creating urban forests to cool neighborhoods and absorb carbon—here’s how yours can too" sparks hope and action. 3. We’re missing the power of social proof Humans act based on what others do. Case in point: When a Sacramento neighborhood showed residents their energy usage compared to neighbors, consumption dropped 2% more than when they only saw environmental impact data. The most powerful climate messages don’t just inform—they inspire. What are some examples of great research that hasn’t been able to translate into effective climate messaging? Share both good and bad examples of climate messaging in the comments ⬇️ #ClimateCommunication #Sustainability #CorporateResponsibility #ClimateAction

If you're selling sausages, you don't talk about the pig carcass wrapped in intestine casing. You talk about the backyard BBQ, the smell, the evening light, and the friends around the table. This is some of the best advice I've heard about climate communications, and it came from Solitaire Townsend. She co-founded Futerra in 2001 and has spent over two decades exploring how to talk about sustainability in ways that actually move people. Here are a few ideas of hers that have shaped how I think about this work: → Lead with the future people want, not the catastrophe they're supposed to avoid. The sausage principle applies directly to climate. Most messaging leads with what's going wrong. But people move toward something desirable faster than they move away from something scary. She calls this "selling the sizzle". → Despair is a bigger threat than the problem itself. Climate change is chemistry. We understand it, we have solutions, and we're solving newer problems every day. The real risk is people giving up before we get there. Solitaire puts it this way: she's more afraid of fatalism than she is of climate change. Once someone believes nothing can be done, you've lost them. → You need substance and story at the same time. If you only have the substance, you end up with dense graphs and 80-slide decks that only a handful of people will ever sit through. If you only have the story, you're one press cycle away from being called out for greenwash. The work is keeping both together. Rigor that can withstand scrutiny, wrapped in something people actually want to hear. She calls this "logic and magic" working together. → Work with human nature, not against it. People are motivated by progress and reward, not guilt and restriction. We like comfort, status, and being well-fed. Sustainable solutions that ignore this don't get adopted. The ones that account for how humans actually work are the ones that scale. → Showing beats lecturing. Bombarding people with climate science doesn't move them to action. She calls this "greensplaining", and once you see it, you notice it everywhere. It overwhelms people, makes them feel small, and gives them nothing to do with what they just learned. Showing them what they can do, and making it easy to do it, is what actually works. These ideas have stuck with me for years. If you're working in climate and trying to figure out how to talk about it in ways that actually resonate, her body of work is one of the best places to start.

Last week, someone who’s been working in climate communications for over a year quietly admitted they still didn’t totally understand what “lowering emissions” meant. Not the general vibe of it, but the actual why and how. I loved their honesty. It reminded me how often specialists in the space continue to throw around terms that even insiders don’t fully grasp. If we want the public, policymakers, and private sector to act, we have to stop communicating like we’re at a scientific conference. Here are 5 tools I use all the time to make complex climate and science ideas land: ✔️ The “Grandma Test” Can you explain the concept to your grandma without losing meaning? This test forces clarity without condescension—and it’s one of the fastest ways to reveal jargon you didn’t even know you were using. ✔️ Metaphor as a Bridge Metaphors are powerful shortcuts for understanding. For example, instead of saying “emissions reductions,” try: “Imagine your home has a slow gas leak. Cutting emissions is like finding and sealing that leak—before it gets worse.” It may take longer to say (a communications faux pas) but we process metaphors faster than data. ✔️ Chunk the Concept Break big ideas into bite-sized parts: What is it? Why does it matter? What can be done? Who’s doing it well? This format creates digestible flow and gives your audience mental “hooks” to follow you. ✔️ Visual Storytelling Not every concept needs a paragraph. Sometimes it just needs a sketch, a diagram, or a comparison chart. ✔️ Mirror the Audience Before I write or say anything, I ask: “What does this audience care about most?” Meeting people in their worldview is half the battle. I’ll be sharing more of the frameworks and strategies I use in future posts—but if your team is trying to translate climate science or sustainability language into something people actually understand and act on, C3 can help. Let’s make it make sense. 👉 Feel free to reach out or follow along for more tools from the Climate Communications Collective playbook.