Because so much focus has come on greenwashing in the past couple of years, companies working in the field of sustainability are now terrified of accidentally landing in a shitstorm.

This was clearer than ever after I spent three days at the Citizens Climate Summit in Denmark this September. I cannot count the number of companies I heard talking about the fear of the shitstorm.

First off, I understand it. Shitstorms suck, and they pose a threat to your company, your reputation, and the foundation of your career. While that fear has validity, it is currently holding green companies hostage. Let’s break it down:

In the past couple of years, we’ve been seeing more and more companies working in this field of sustainability that are choosing not to promote their green attributes and their environmental effort out of fear that someone will call them out for greenwashing. This is a problem because, as consumers, we need to know what products and services are out there, so we are able to make an informed choice and can demand more from the industry as a whole, regardless of what industry this might be. Clothing, food, mobility apps, power production, you name it.

If we don’t know that you are better than your competition, how are we supposed to choose your products? Not talking about your environmental efforts is bad for the entire industry because it doesn’t show your competition what you are capable of. It doesn’t show other companies in the industry that how you run your business is an actual possibility – one that they might also adopt.

By not sharing how a company is working with sustainability and their environmental efforts, they are missing out on the chance to impact the rest of their industry.

Sharing is caring – not greenwashing

There’s this strange idea that if you talk about your environmental impact as a company, you cannot be trusted and that you should definitely not use your sustainable aspects as part of your marketing. It’s binary thinking, where people tend to think that only companies who don’t talk about their environmental efforts actually take action.

I want to call a big fat bullshit on this. Of course, you should use it as part of your marketing and your sales efforts. You are in this world to make a change. You started your company or pivoted your company because you want to leave the world better than you found it. You want to use your company to make an impact.

So, tell me again why you should not include the work you are doing with environmental issues or human rights issues as part of your marketing strategy? I get the noble idea that you should do your good deeds of silence, and that is beautiful. But come on… We are living in a global capitalist society.

Thinking that you can run a successful business without sales and marketing is akin to thinking you can run a marathon without training for it. Yeah, you might be able to, but in the process, you risk hurting yourself, and you will go through an unnecessary amount of pain while you are very likely to not reach your goal.

Okay, now that we’ve established that companies should not fall into the trap of being silent about their environmental efforts (also referred to as green hushing. More on that later), let’s look at how we can move beyond the fear of the shitstorm.

Moving beyond the shitstorm

First of all, understand that greenwashing is almost never intentional. It doesn’t come from companies thinking, “Golly, today I’m going to dupe someone into buying my product by saying it’s sustainable.” No, that’s not the majority of greenwashing cases out there. The more likely scenario is that you have a person in the marketing team who has a marketing background and a marketing education.

That’s fair. That’s why you hired the person, right?

But environmental communication and marketing is a bit different. Writing about sustainability can be daunting. What does ‘eco-friendly’ mean? What are the units related to carbon released into the atmosphere? Which raw materials are sustainable and which are not? When is something impactful, and when is it just pushing the problem further down the chain? This isn’t easy stuff. This isn’t something that you learn about in a pamphlet.

I fully get why greenwashing happens. It is not out of malice. It is not out even out of greed.

It is simply a lack of the right expertise in the marketing department. It’s hard to navigate the information about different environmental issues and their interconnectedness and how your product or services relate to them.

But as someone who has an environmental science background and has been elbow-deep in IPCC reports for the last decade and a bit, navigating environmental marketing while avoiding the greenwashing trap isn’t hard.

Avoiding the greenwashing trap

How should you market your company to avoid landing in a greenwashing shitstorm?

I can’t cover every aspect in just one article, but I will be posting advice on avoiding greenwashing in the coming weeks, so I recommend that you follow my company, something green, or connect with my personal account.

However, the number one thing you need to remember is that it’s okay not to be all the way there yet. The market, especially my generation and younger, understands that it’s a process. We understand that you are not perfect. Your company is not perfect, and you are not 100% sustainable because nothing is. We understand that we are all working towards something better. That transparency will build trust with your audience.

In your marketing material, you are allowed to say, “We are working towards 100% renewable energy consumption. These are the steps we have taken so far.” You are allowed to say, “We are working towards a transparent supply chain with all-biodegradable materials, but we are not there yet; this is what we have done so far.”

The internet is loud

I will leave you with a final remark. Don’t be afraid of the trolls.

Remember that no matter what you write in your content, there’s always gonna be someone putting it down because it is far easier to find mistakes than to see the journey of incremental change.

There’s always gonna be someone dissatisfied with what you’re doing. In this day and age, the people commenting on your social media pages might not even be actual people. They might be hired to spread negative comments. They might even be bots. Or they might be someone having a bad day and taking it out on your company. Remember that for every bad comment you get, there are likely 100s of positive comments you didn’t get because people didn’t take the time to comment on a company page. Why should they? Remember, the threshold of commenting positive things on a company post is much higher than commenting on a personal profile, whereas it’s a lot easier to post negative comments on a company profile because the company “has no feelings.”

Don’t be afraid of the trolls. Don’t hold off on your environmental marketing efforts because you are afraid of the shitstorm. Consumers and your industry need to see how you are making an impact. They can’t try to be like you if they can’t see you, and we need them to know about your impact. It’s not vanity, it’s a necessity.

Like it or not, telling the world about your impact is part of your impact.

If you want help making sure your content and communication strategy is greenwashing-proof, reach out. I offer anti-greenwashing audits and communication strategies that support your company’s key goal, will help you reach your target audience, and will help you make an impact.

The post Fear of the shitstorm is holding green companies back appeared first on Something Green.

It’s taken me until Monday night, the day before World Science Day for Peace and Development, to write about it. That is, it’s taken me this long to stop staring at the blank page while trying to drown the feeling that all scientific efforts have been cast aside as the world tumbles forward into utter chaos.

It’s taken me this long to dare write a post about what the scientific community needs to do moving forward, and about what our role in this year’s catastrophic events has been. 

The official objectives of World Science Day for Peace and Development are to:

• Strengthen public awareness on the role of science for peaceful and sustainable societies;
• Promote national and international solidarity for shared science between countries;
• Renew national and international commitment for the use of science for the benefit of societies;
• Draw attention to the challenges faced by science and raising support for the scientific endeavor.

Unfortunately, the above does not reflect the events of 2020.

Working with climate change communication and climate change denial, this year’s wave of anti-science outburst has been in no way surprising, but they have been disheartening, none the less.

Masks, 5G, micro-chips in vaccines, just to name a few. Even something as simple as the dismissal of the severity of COVID.

“It’s just the flu.”

In the science community, we like to pride ourselves on being right, and proper, and sticking to facts.

A true professional keeps their cool and doesn’t get emotional because we understand that science doesn’t care about emotions. Facts, trials, and peer reviews are elements we use to determine our actions, right? Science doesn’t pick sides, is what we tell ourselves.

But this year should serve as a potent reminder that facts are easy to dismiss. They are not a default element in decision-making, not for the individual nor on a governmental level.

That lack of trust in science came with an unbearable price this year. Hundreds of thousands of lives lost because of an unwillingness to accept science.

It is as heartbreaking as it is unacceptable.

Hundreds of thousands of lives lost. Not to fate, not to a pandemic, but to willful ignorance and the dismissal of science.

It’s so very tempting to point a finger in the direction of the uninformed, or the players who actively seek to gain from societies that lose trust in their government and scientists, and of course, there is blame to place there.

But we also have to look at our own role in this. Did we do enough to cultivate an understanding of the different sciences? To make them accessible for everyone? To build trust via human connections?

A need for a different approach to science

It’s so easy to get sucked into an echo chamber where everyone understands your line of thinking and line of expertise. And when you encounter someone who doesn’t, someone who disagrees with climate change, or who thinks vaccines cause autism, it’s so easy to turn away and dismiss not just the statements but the person.

The hard part is deciding to dig deeper. To understand the human and the fear behind the lacking trust in science. To dare and meet attacks on your line of work with compassion, instead of facts.

But this is what is needed from us.

Our vocation is not just a line of work. We don’t get to go home, hang our hats, kick up our feet, and relax. If you’re reading this, you are most likely working in a field that’s trying to change the world. Trying to stop ecosystems from collapsing. Trying to secure equal rights. Trying to move the world in a better direction.

Part of that job involves cultivating an understanding the people who are working against the change you are trying to create. Is it fair to add additional skills to your resume in order for you to do your job? No. It’s not. But life isn’t fair, and right now, we need to fix a lot of things before it is too late, and we need a global trust in science in order to do that.

Science community, you are not alone

I urge you, the science community, to team up with communicators, with psychologists, educators, activists, even influencers, and work with them to distribute the important knowledge of your field. To break down complex issues and make them assessable to everyone.

We cannot rebuild trust in science by staying in our echo-chambers and only working with people in our own vocation. We don’t have the luxury of merely learning about the world, writing papers, and then expecting citizens to trust us, or governing bodies to follow our advice.

We need to work together and bridge the gaps created by polarization. We need to put ourselves in the shoes, not just of our audience, but in the people we think we have nothing in common with.

Because the truth is, we have more in common than we think. We have more in common with climate change deniers, 5G opposers, and anti-maskers than we would like to admit.

We cannot solve the problems of the world without science.

But, without a foundation of empathy, there Is nowhere for science to take hold and grow.

When I started writing this post, I thought I would be writing about the importance of science in solving the many challenged we face.

But without empathy, compassion, and collaboration, science is useless. That vast pool of knowledge we already hold and that has the potential to lift the human race to a new standard of life, is just isolated facts, useful in pub quizzes and as entertainment.

If we want to change the world with science, we need to cultivate empathy.

The post 2020 and 1 million deaths showed us that trust in science is broken. Now we need to fix it appeared first on Something Green.

Question: What do the following areas have in common?

• The Amazon
• Siberia
• Greenland
• Alaska
• Africa
• Indonesia
• Europe

Answer: They are all on fire.

Waking up to the news that yet another country or region is on fire, can do strange things to your sense of normality.

I honestly had a moment a few days ago, where I thought, “Wait, Indonesia is burning? But that was last year’s news”.

With so many disasters happening, it’s hard to keep track of what is what, especially if you haven’t even had your morning coffee yet.

But it also means that we have a tendency of zoning out, and becoming indifferent. Basically, your brain is going, “Dude, what do you mean more fires?! I’m still trying to figure out what to do about the Amazon one. You know what? I’m just not going to care.”

That’s when we find ourselves shrugging over the news of yet another wildfire.

It’s totally normal.

So how can we as climate communicators get the news out there, without sparking apathy?

We start by understanding the inner workings of the brain.

Knowing that too much negative news can cause us to shut down is vital for any communicator.

The first way around this is context.

Communicating the bigger picture with context

In the case of, say the Indonesian fires, you need to communicate that this is a different fire than the one that has been on the news lately. You need to give a little information about why there’s a fire. Are they triggered by the same political situation as the fires in Brazil, or are there different reasons?

How does it relate to climate change? Many forest fires are both caused by, and causes of, climate change. And that fact can be a bit counterintuitive if you don’t have a background in the environmental field.

Why?

Because we are used to cause and effect. A leads to B. X + Y = Z.

But climate change is a case of many factors interplaying. While the term positive feedback loop is becoming more and more known, it’s still not a household concept.

This means you need to tell your audience how this story relates to the other news about global wildfires.

You also need to make your news tangible.

Making it tangible — have useful reference points.

And though I personally hate comparing everything to Olympic sized swimming pools, it’s a useful benchmark. Finding a measure of comparison where the reader has a “feeling” of the size, rather than an intellectual idea (how big is 10,000 sq miles?), allows the reader to understand your message with ease.

Why?

Because, they don’t have to dig out their mental abacus to get an idea about how big something is.

You have now made it easy for your audience to integrate this new information into their existing knowledge pool. Great.

Now it’s time to not turn them into nihilists. (And if you work in environmental communication, chances are you’ll need to focus on this.)

As I said earlier, the brain can go into a gridlock if it’s given too much negative information. You need to mix in a spoonful of sugar, to make the medicine go down.

The easiest way to understand what this feels like is by remembering an awful day you had recently.

Your alarm didn’t go off, one of your kids spilled their breakfast all over the floor, your stock fell, it was unbearably warm, and on top of that, a politician did something you worry will sling the global economy into another recession.

Feel your heart racing a little bit faster? Maybe your finger’s tense up as you scroll down this post, now reminded of all the other things you have to take care of. Buy a new phone, clean up the house, make sure you have enough money in your bank to withstand a potential economic blow. Oh, maybe there’s even a bill coming up.

By now, I’ve lost you.

You’re no longer thinking about communication, but about all the things you need to take care of, and all the potential threats out there.

One thought leads to another, and another, because it’s never just one thing that makes us worry or makes us tense. It’s all the things, combined.

Here’s the good news: It’s going to be all right.

All the things are real and scary, but they also have real solutions. Doable solutions.

It’s a question of taking one thing at the time, and if you are overwhelmed, filter out the news that seems too big, until you have the mental capacity and tools to start working on them.

Now, the point of this little masochistic exercise was not to get you to hyperventilate for my amusement.

It was to remind you of what your audience is facing. Every. Day.

We all have stuff that’s stressing us. Some of it we are in control us, and some seem beyond us.

But our most significant stressors that the things where we feel we have no agency. And if you don’t believe me, go back to your stressor list and rate the elements on it. I’ll bet you a slice of lemon cheesecake, that you are more stressed about the things that feel out of your control.

SO! What does this mean for communicating the forest fires in Indonesia?

We’re getting back to the spoonful of sugar, to make the medicine go down. And no, you should not be sugar-coating climate change.

You have to give your audience agency.

Audience agency in environmental communication

Help them act. Give them the option of feeling empowered. Tell them what steps they can take, right now, to act on this.

It might not make them act, but simply having the option will stop the brain from getting paralyzed.

Having agency helps your audience take in the news, even when the news is:

THE WORLD IS ON FIRE!

Always, always, ALWAYS, offer concrete solutions to what the individual can do.

That’s it.

So the next time you have environmental news to share, include doable next steps, that your audience can take.

If you found this information useful, give it a share.

And remember, you can always reach out if you want to learn more about environmental communication. Or add me on  LinkedIn.

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The post How to talk about a world on fire without scaring your audience — Key tips on environmental communication. appeared first on Something Green.

A few weeks ago, I did something I had never done before.

I made a video for my friends and family, and for the first time ever, spoke publicly about the actual state of climate change. Then, I shared the video on Facebook.

In other words: I told the truth, openly.

“The truth about climate change? Well…Shit’s on fire, yo.”

… said no one.

I would not classify myself as a lier. In fact, I’m pretty bad at lying, to the point where anyone can tell if I’m not enjoying my food, or my new Christmas sweater.

But for the past many years, whenever I have spoken publically about climate change, I have done so with a filter.

The only time I would have an honest conversation about the newest NASA results, carbon readings, or water shortage projections, was when I had one-on-one conversations.

The reason? Climate change is fucking scary.

Telling the truth about climate change

In a face-to-face conversation, I can sit a friend down and explain exactly what direction the world is heading in.

And every day the news gets worse. But I can have the hard conversation while providing real-time emotional support, as well as concrete advice on what the individual can do to act on climate change.

Mass-communicating the information leaves me with fewer tools to ensure that the receiving end is ok and feels empowered, not depressed.

You may at this point be thinking ‘I’m a bit of an overly sensitive snowflake, who wants to sugar coat life.’

I wish.

The reason I seldom give unfiltered news about climate change is that repeated neural science experiments have shown us, that when we are faced with information about something big and scary, where we feel like we have no agency, we tend to do one of two things:

1)   We dispute the information. The threat seems too big, so instead of plunging headfirst into action, we emotionally safeguard ourselves by merely denying the facts

 

2)   We despair. Though we take in the new data, it’s too big to process, seeing as we still have little agency over the situation. As a result, we get depressed, making it even harder for us to act.

I’ve written about why this is again, and again, with emphasis on how your words matter.

Recently this knowledge has been incorporated into news outlets. Hurra!

The Guardian recently announced that it would change its approach to climate communication. Up until then, they had, like all other news media, reported on the stories in a fact-centered manner — as is considered the morally correct way.

As a climate communicator, you ARE the map

Broadcasting climate science news without context is irresponsible and risky.

We need to accompany the fact with suggestions on actions. Meaningful action! I’ve seen an article on the potential threat of a 3C warming urge people to “take action by recycling.” Are you kidding me?

People want to act. But they don’t know how to. We are all overworked and overstimulated by a thousand pop-ups, and likes, and shares. “Just tell me what to do!”

Just tell me what to do. Let’s unpack that sentence. It’s an emotional scream — a desperate cry for agency. The world is on fire, how can I stop it?

As climate change communicators, we need to be aware of this power, and the responsibility that comes with it.

We are holding the mic on climate change and environmental action, and we chose to say matters.

We have to understand that part of our job is to be a roadmap that readers can use navigate climate change. We are the ones that say, “this one thing is what you can do, right now, to make a difference.”

Yes, it’s a lot to ask, and it means we need to stay updated about both climate change, its causes, its effects, and the different actions and organizations out there.

Merely stating the facts, that the world is in a dire state, is not enough. We risk being the stick in the wheel if we do not aid our readers through the trauma-inducing state of the world. We risk making the citizens of the world passive, and depressed — depressed warriors don’t win battles.

You could argue that the role of journalists is the deliver the news, and it’s the readers’ job to process the information. But we are way beyond that point. Content and news blend together. Pundits, celebrities, and influencers become guides in our attempt the sort though mega bite after mega bite of information.

As environmental communicators, we need to do better. We need to tell the truth while offering a way for people to act — a way to gain agency in a world that is increasingly confusing, terrifying, and overwhelming.

Make your news matter.

Edit:

I recently saw a great example that I want to leave you with.

A writer at Gizmodo, ended her piece about The Extinction Crisis Keeps Getting More Dire, With 28,000 Species At-Risk, with this:

“Not all hope is lost, though. Climate change, at some level, is inevitable at this point. Still, the worst of it can be avoided if humans get their shit together. The same goes for deforestation, hunting, and overfishing. Humans can stop these activities, saving the species that’ll be lost if we keep on this path.”

That’s how you do it, folks.

If you want to know more about environmental communication add me on LinkedIn, or sign up for our newsletter.

If you need help communicating sustainability, send us an email and we’ll have you set up in no time.

The post Liar, liar, globe on fire — why green professionals don’t tell the whole truth about climate change appeared first on Something Green.

If you post it, they will come — Sustainability & Social Media are not enemies

Besides being a cornucopia of cat pictures and updates about your friends’ kids, your news stream is also an indicator of the world around you. If there’s an earthquake on the other side of the world, it’s in your news stream.

If there’s a local political scandal it’s in your news stream. And, if there’s a big environmental problem, it’s in your news stream.

Sharing is caring, and the things you choose to post about and interact with – and guess who’s paying attention to that. Big companies.

A few years ago I wrote about how Coca-cola serves as a good indicator of social change, but recently, our favorite supplier of oddly named furniture drove home my point.

Goliath awakens – because of 1 billion Davids

I’ve had the privilege of chatting with several people working in IKEA’s sustainability department. The Swedish giant has seen the writing on the wall and is following the demand of the customer, by committing to phase out single-use plastic products by 2020.

What caused it? Well, social media. A wave of videos and photos of plastic pollution, partitions, and articles showed us just how bad oceanic plastic pollution is. As IKEA’s spokesman said:

‘The latest move comes amid growing concern over plastic pollution in the world’s oceans, where it can harm and kill wildlife such as turtles and seabirds.’ 

Social Media holds enormous power and can, when used with a purpose, be a drive for social and environmental change.

LEGO, McDonald’s, and IKEA – The cool kids are already doing it

Big companies have heard the roar of social media and are ready to follow their customers. IKEA is not alone in answering the call of social media.

LEGO is joying the field of sustainable heavyweights’ with an aim for 100% sustainable packaging by 2025. Disregarding my love for LEGO, this is impressive.

Finally, the golden arches know that consumers are fed up with the food giants negative impact on the environment. So, in a bold move, McDonald’s decided to promise a global switch to sustainable packaging including an aim to get 100 percent of its packaging from renewable, recycled or certified sources by 2025.

Furthermore, the burger pusher will make recycling available in all of its restaurants by 2025 – Today that number is around 10 percent.

All of this is a consequence of Social Media and the power of the internet. It’s easy to share information about the negative impact of big companies. And, for companies, it easy to promote themselves in a green light if they know how to navigate on these platforms.

Let’s look at what actually works on the internet. The answer is crap.

Who gives a crap – interview with founder Simon Griffiths

The internet is full of amazing things and if you can harvest the power of social media, you can bring your green product or cause into the spotlight within weeks. Let’s take a look at company Who Gives a Crap.

In short, the Australian based company sells toilet paper. What makes these guys special is, that company is a cover-up for a do-good organization.

The founders started it with the very basic – and noble – goal in mind:

‘We started Who Gives A Crap when we learned that 2.3 billion people across the world don’t have access to a toilet. That’s roughly 40% of the global population and means that around 289,000 children under five die every year from diarrhoeal diseases caused by poor water and sanitation. That’s almost 800 children per day, or one child every two minutes.’

Besides being one of the most inspiring companies I’ve ever come across, they also know how to rock the internet.

In July 2012, the founders launched Who Gives A Crap with a crowdfunding campaign on IndieGoGo. The CEO, Simon, sat on a toilet in a warehouse while being live-streamed!

This is what viewers saw when they tuned in to the live streaming of the last 50 hours of the fundraising.

I the final 50 hours of the campaign, they raised over $50,000 (watch the video here), and now had the capital to start the company.

The campaign has been praised in countless media and gathered a crowd of loyal supporters that would stay with them in years to come.

Why it worked — Social Media is fun!

This campaign had it all. It was fun, it was daring, it had an element of urgency, a great cause, a huge share-factor, and toilet humor, literally.

Crowdfunding has a built-in element of share-ready, meaning the entire platform and impact is based on you sharing your campaigns on social media, and then your friends and followers share it. Then, their friends share it, and so on.

The campaigns need to have a creative element, and this one potty-hottie sure did.

It placed itself in the spotlight by using an everyday activity and taking it to the extreme.

“Sitting on a toilet is relatable – sitting on the toilet for 50 hours is something no sane person would do, so obviously, you had to see it for yourself.” – Simon Griffeths, CEO

Who Gives a Crap is set up around (toilet) humor, a happy positive language, and a good cause.

2,3 billion people not having access to a toilet isn’t a fun fact. It’s a depressing fact, that’s so far been portrayed with pictures of sad and sick people. But too much bad news about the state of the world fosters apathy. This is the Backfire effect, which I wrote about previously.

Who Gives a Crap took a heavy, and in its nature negative subject, and made it something to care and laugh about — their website’s filled with jokes and perky, bright colors. It just makes you happy.

“But I can’t do that? Who’s gonna take us seriously?”

This response is common. There is, in general, a fear among green professionals to appear unprofessional if they make their content fun.

Like I said earlier the internet is a different place, and being a green professional is very different now from what it used to be.

The Who Gives a Crap campaign is an example of many business owners worst nightmare. You have to let go of control and let the internet swallow you.

What would the company itself say to this notion? I was lucky to get in touch with one of the founders, Simon Griffiths, and ask him. Simon says:

“Being able to use humor/irreverence in the brand depends on the industry you’re in, for example our charity partners probably couldn’t get away with it since the subject matter they’re dealing with is serious, but we sell toilet paper… there’s nothing too serious about toilet where we need to worry about treading lightly.”

While this is irrefutable logic, I still want to challenge it.*

Think about it, how many other toilet paper companies have you seen doing funny things? Ever?

I’ve seen none. Toilet paper commercials always feature puppies and babies, and that strange blue liquid to show how absorbent it is. Why do they assume I have blue pee?

Your turn — Here’s your 3-step homework

Yes, I’m giving you homework. We need to see your green work out there, so saddle up and let’s ride.

And yes, you can “cheat” and hire someone to do social media and web-presence for you, because what matters is, that you tell the world how you’re changing the world, why you’re doing it, and what your audience can do to get involved.

Step 1: Find you why

If you haven’t done this yet, now’s the time. Write down WHY you are doing the work you’re doing.

Why are you selling organic beauty products? And why are trying to get people to care about ocean pollution? Why do you want to stop climate change?

Whatever line of work you’re in, set aside at least 20 minutes to think hard about this. What are your values, why are you doing what you’re doing?

Don’t take the easy route. If you’re asking yourself, why do I want to stop climate change, and the only answer you come up with is, ‘because it’s important’ then you need to dig deeper? Why DO YOU think it’s important?

Do we have a moral obligation to future generations? Do you want security when you retire? Are you afraid that global climate change will mess with cocoa bean farming, resulting in shortages of chocolate — I am.

Dig until you get to the core of why you are in this particular niché, in this particular job.

This is, of course, the WHY of your business or organization.

If you’re the CEO of a small business, then it’s likely lines up with your personal WHY. If you’re a communication manager for an organization that deals with recycling (like I was), the WHY has to be formulated by your team and given the green light by upper management. And nope, 20 minutes is not gonna cut it.

Ready? Awesome! You get an A.

Step 2: How?

How is YOUR COMPANY making the world better?

It should be an easy question to answer, but often it’s not.

I go through this process with almost all my clients, to really dig out what they do, what sets them apart from conventional products, and where they add value to the lives of their customers.

Basically, you get soooo sucked into your work, that you grow blind to how awesome you really are.

Again, I recommend the Grandma test. If you were to explain what you do to your 80-something-year-old grandma, what would you say?

Got an answer? Great, now explain it again to your grandma’s 90-something-year-old friend.

Don’t get discouraged. This exercise does take some try’s, especially if you’re trying to see your blind spots.

Step 3: What now?

Yay, last part of the homework — high-five!

What can your audience do RIGHT NOW, to support your work, and make the world better?

Reuse a plastic bag? Buy your biodegradable cutlery? Sign a petition?

GREAT!

Did you tell them?

Just like any other relationship in your life, you need to tell the audience what you would like them to do. They’re not mind readers.

In fact, we desperately want to be more sustainable, but figuring out how is hard work. Just like you consult your cookbooks when you want to make tasty things, we’re looking for a guide to a greener way on living — help us out

*Hi there, Mr. Troll! Yes, you are absolutely right, of course, Simon’s point is, that their charity partners can’t use the same humor. But Simon is comparing Who Gives a Crap to a charity, not a toilet paper company. They are both, which allows for all the potty-related jokes you can squeeze out.

The post Why the green sector needs to get better at Social Media and web communication — part two, sustainability & social media explained appeared first on Something Green.

The green field is missing out and falling behind

I keep coming back to this subject, simply because it’s important.

As someone who lives on the internet, it pains me to time and time again see amazing products and organizations miss their audience because they don’t know how to navigate social media and behavioral change strategies.

It’s the reason I switched from working as an environmental planner to working as a copywriter. There are so many passionate professionals out there who get up every day and work themselves to the bones to make the world a better place.

But I saw them struggling with reaching their goals and falling behind in terms of communication. Often the “script” of a communication campaign would follow the same script as the ones I remember from my childhood.

Use less energy, save water and do it for future generations.

These campaigns are heavy on facts and appeal to the better nature in. They ask us to make better choices, and basically be better humans. The problem is, they don’t work.

I came across these campaigns all the time and was frustrated out of my skull. Why? Because I knew that only a few tips and tricks could help them make an enormous difference.

I wanted to give professionals in the green industry the tools they needed to make those changes happen. After a few years of frustration, I switched carrier path. I now work full-time writing copy for websites, newsletters, and social media. I also teach these techniques to my clients, so they don’t have to depend on me.

Social media is no longer an online identity – it is part of your identity.

If you’re not online, you don’t exist.

The green industry is no different.

You don’t have to beat your green competitors!

The beauty of the environmental sector is, you don’t with other green organizations or products. If done right, information campaigns promoting behavioral change, do not compete with other behavioral change campaigns. You are not a soft drink, trying to outmaneuver other soft drinks.

We need all hands on deck to make the world a more sustainable place. Luckily, the communication strategies that work for pro-environmental behavior are so good you don’t have to fight other companies in a green arena. Your success does not mean another green organization has to fail.

But you still need to work hard and stay visible, so you don’t lose ground to non-sustainable solutions.

Bringing the green sector into the age of the internet — and social media

Being a kid in the 80’s and 90’s I remember the marketing slogan: Sex sells.

Selling climate change prevention and mitigation as sexy is hard, and a rather inept thing to do. You would never promote 3rd world aid as sexy, it’s insensitive and very inappropriate. Good news! Sex isn’t the only sales tool anymore.

For the last decade describing an ad as sexy has referred less to the physical cleavages and abs of the 80’s and 90’s and more to a sense of ‘Shiny’.

So does the environmental sector need to get shiny?

Yes and no. The world is a very different place than it was just ten years ago. In the world of marketing, this manifests itself in the way that authenticity sells more than sparkles.

I repeat: Authenticity sells

WOOP WOOP! This is great news for the environmental sector as it is if full of passionate and inspiring, authentic individuals. The bad news is these individuals usually don’t feel comfortable navigating the social media jungle. Often, they even to downplay their media presence on purpose.

The WHY, the passion, and the story

Authenticity is scary and daunting, and if you —like me— remember a time before the internet you probably don’t have an urge to create a youtube channel, or write about your innermost secret online.

But this is what vast parts of the internet is now. Liza Koshy, an internet celebrity with over 40 million online followers, announced her breakup with fellow youtube celebrity David Dobrik via a youtube video. I dare you to watch and not get something in your eye.

You might be thinking, yeah well, all of these people are going to regret plastering the internet like this. But this is the equivalent of my older generations telling my peers and me, that we would regret spending so much time playing video games. We didn’t. In fact, we all have great memories of those games and it shaped who we became as individuals, and as a culture. To spell it out:

Being vulnerable and authentic online isn’t something we’re going to regret. It’s the new normal.

Is scary, it’s new, and it feels like it goes against everything you know. But you need to show more of yourself and your values if you want to create trust.

Your audience what to know ‘Why’ you are doing what you are doing. Why are you selling biodegradable cutlery, why are you working to prevent deforestation, and in my case why are you writing about behavioral change online instead of having a normal 9-5? That also why the ‘About’ page on your website is crucial to your business.

So does this mean that you should get rid of your filter and just show the gritty you? No. Youtube videos are edited, Instagram pictures are selected from a batch of 10 different shots and have filters.

And the mother of social media, Facebook, is always showing you the brightest moments of the day — Not the moment where you realize you’ve had something green stuck in your teeth for the entire team meeting.

Social Media is more like a first date. It’s an honest representation of you, but you make an effort to look nice. You pick out a nice outfit, you groom yourself, and you show an interest in the other person. It’s still you, but it’s a very presentable side of you.

If you, on the other hand, show up to a first date in your Sunday jammies you’re placing yourself in the back of the field.

It’s the same thing with social media. You show off your best features while remaining honest. Hopefully, this (virtual) date, will lead to a lasting connection between you, and your audience.

But I’m too busy making the world better – I don’t have time for updates

This is the pitfall for most people in the green sector. They work tirelessly to improve the state of the world. Taking time to post about in on Facebook, or take a picture for Instagram, seems like time wasted.

I get it, I’m the same.

You would rather be doing your job than tweeting about your job.

But the world has changed a lot, and social media is a crucial element for success. It doesn’t matter if you’re selling eco-friendly swimwear or building drought protection in Africa, get online!

One solution is to hire someone to do it for you. If this is not an option for you right now, keep reading to get hands-on advice. Don’t worry, I’m right here with you, and we’ll take it slow.

Going back to the dating analogy, you might feel nervous about putting yourself out there. You want everything to be perfect before you start. Forget about it.

Like I said authenticity sells. There is no such thing as the perfect social media campaign or perfect strategy. But there are a few rules of thumbs.

One of them is simply knowing how your target audience act on the internet, and what the trends are.

Memes, emojis, and fads – know your audience

The first time I used Snap(chat) as a verb, I got mad street cred from my stepdaughter while her dad stared blankly from the other side of the table and asked: ‘what’?

If you have kids, you’ll know that they are on top of fashion and trends in a way that’s hard for you to comprehend. If you are trying to change the behavior of teenagers, you need a campaign that targets — and a lot of patience.

If this picture makes no sense to you, you really need to read the rest of this post.

But even if you are targeting adults, you need to be aware of the unique language that makes up the internet.

The web is built on jokes and references that people know and cherish. Some are obvious, and some are not. Having success on social media requires you to understand what memes, and emojis your audience likes. Just like you need to know how your audience acts on the internet.

How the internet works — Lessons from Tesla

Regardless of what you think of Tesla, they know how the internet works.
In 2014, which is almost generations ago in internet time, Tesla released all their patents in the hope of pushing the global EV production further.

It was, as the CEO Elon Musk put it, in the spirit of the open source movement, which was sweeping the internet at the time. But more importantly, the news took the internet with storm when Tesla paired it with the words:

All Our Patent Are Belong To You

If you were not a citizen of the internet at the time, this looked like an awkward spelling error. Embarrassing, right?  Nope. It was, in fact, a stroke of genius.

It references the meme All Your Base Are Belong to Us, which is a classical internet meme.

By choosing this headline, anyone who was in on the joke was likely to share the news, and help give it a viral life on the web, instead of “just” a news story about a car manufacturer who for some reason was giving away all their secrets.

In fact, Musk has a long history of working the internet to mainstream knowledge about new technologies, like appearing on the Wait but why blog, and latest introducing flamethrowers and cyborg dragons.

Why it worked — Building trust

Using memes and internet slang that your audience uses, is equivalent to showing them, that you speak the same language as them – You are on their team. It feeds into a culture and therefore a sense of belonging. It very simply builds trust and rapport.

I’ve heard green professionals protest to this approach with the question: But isn’t that manipulation?

You can answer that better than me: Are you manipulating people when you are having a conversation with them, in their native language?

Striped of body language and why to use emojis — Get social

Speaking in a mutual language shows the person you’re talking to, that you understand them, and share their values. The same rule applies on the web.

It’s something most of us do per default when meeting new people. We tend to find subjects we have in common, and even start to copy each others body language. This is a natural part of human communications. The reason it feels weird on social media is because it’s happening on a new platform.

The internet still feels like something different from “normal” human behavior. But, understand that the line between “normal human behavior” and internet behavior, are getting blurrier by the day.

Showing someone that you are part of their culture is called mirroring. Well known in social psychology, mirroring is the act of copying each others body language, either consciously or subconsciously.

If you want to see this effect in full action, find a couple who is on their first date. Watch how they tend to sip their water at the same time, straighten their back in the same way, and so on.

On the internet, you don’t have the luxury of using body language to communicate. This is part of the reason why emojis and memes should be a natural part of your online presence.

There are many numbers floating around referring to how much of our communication is verbal, and how much is non-verbal.  One of them is the 55-38-7 rule, also known as Albert Mehrabian’s rule. This is the belief is that 55% of communication is body language, 38% is the tone of voice, and 7% is the actual spoken or written words. This rule has been much debated and to a high degree debunked, because of the uncertainty about the percentile.

To put it in another way, we know body language and tone of voice are dominant in communication, we just don’t know how much.

A world without Verbal communication

Verbal and Non-verbal communication complement each other and brings the message home faster. We can all relate to being a kid and hearing our mother say ‘come here.’

You know from the tone in her voice and the look in her eyes if you’re about to get a snuggle or a talking to.

But imagine if you only had the words to work with. You would have to go to your mom and ask follow-up questions to figure out what she wanted.

Without emojis and other communications tools (like brakes, quotation marks, exclamation marks, cursive and so on), the internet is an eternal struggle for our brain to figure out what the person on the other end is saying, and how their feeling.

Ever had an e-mail from a coworker where you’re not sure if they approve of your work, or hate it? If you’re like me, you’ll spend a fair amount of time thinking about what they mean, and how to reply. If it had been a face-to-face conversation, instead of e-mail, you would know for sure.

Unfortunately, the busier we are, the more inclined we are to leave out the little ‘good job’ or happy emoji at the end of the e-mail, because we default to writing the way we speak, not remembering that we also speak with our body’s.

Wow, that was a lot of information. Well, I’m sorry to break it to you, but we’re still not done.

The internet is possibly the most powerful weapon in the history of mankind. Without going further into the negative sides like election manipulation, the spreading of fake news, and polarisation, the internet can be a tool for positive change.

In the next post, I break down how you can use the force of the web, to change the world.

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The post Why the green sector needs to get better at Social Media and web — part one appeared first on Something Green.

The best part? Your business becomes even greener while being cost-competitive, scouts’ honor. (7 min.)

…

TOO SOON!

I know, I know… It’s too early to start with Jingle Bells.

Except, it’s not. You’re running a company that’s making the world better while turning a profit. Utilize the holiday season to promote sustainability.

I know you are busy creating an impact on the world, so here’s a 7 min read on using Christmas to grow the trust of your customers and thereby spread the sustainable spirit. 

In bullets:

• I made a to-and-from card for Christmas, which had information about recycling on it
• It solved a problem (always lacking to-and-from notes to put on presents) and gave a non-invasive hint about recycling
• The cards were made of 100% biodegradable paper and are clean enough to eat
• This cradle-to-cradle paper builds trust with your audience/clients because it shows that you take your role as a green professional seriously
• Building trust with audience and clients, makes them talk about your service/product or cause because they can relate – Therefor, as a green professional you win market shares by making small sustainable choices
• If you want cradle-to-cradle Christmas product to build trust between you and your audience and get a leg up on your competition, now is the time to start planning (more tips at the bottom of this post)

The story – Using the holidays to promote sustainability

I was recently cleaning out my drawers and found this card. I made it two years ago, and it’s been sitting in my drawer as a memorabilia since. It was one of those gut-feeling ideas that I knew I had to run with.

I don’t know about you, but I’m always missing the little to-and-from cards you stick on presents at Christmas, meaning I have to resort to, um, alternative ways of writing people’s names on gifts. It’s fun if you do it once, awkward if you do it twice, and it turns out grandmothers remember that kind of thing.

But what if the to-and-from cards had a little something extra on them?

I called our designer and had the layout made faster than you can spell ‘Christmas cards’ backward. Then I got them printed as business cards because it’s an easy standard to work with, and it’s fairly cheap.

I left little piles of cards in public places where a steady stream of people would pass by, throughout city hall (my workplace), as well as in cultural hubs and libraries.

Here’s the backside.

Your Danish might be rusty, so allow me to translate.

Remember, there’s a new recycling scheme in 2017

For more information see Skidtergodt.dk

The cards were a big success and even the chief executive, who is famous for being sparse with his compliments, said they were a great idea — I lived off that shoulder pat for weeks.

Why it worked

It turns out other people are like me and know there’s likely a gift for aunt Ida they forgot all about, and will be hitting the shops last-minute — and forgetting to pick up cards.

As a result people took the to-and-from cards. They were a tangible aid for a recurring problem.

The message on the back was non-intrusive and kind. I was not pushing a sale, or giving a speech about why to recycle. Instead, I was merely reminding them, ‘Hey, there’s a new thing coming up, and this is where you find more information.’

Take a closer look — green to the bone

I forgot to mention something about the cards. They’re made out of 100% sustainably produced, cradle-to-cradle certified paper.

In short, this means there is no soil depletion, the production is CO2 neutral and contains only safe chemicals (and as few as possible). This paper is so environmentally friendly you can eat it! I know, I tried*.

I learned about this product at a sustainability event where I was giving a talk about behavioral change and recycling. A representative from a company that makes the paper, was giving a talk about cradle-to-cradle products. The concept of toxin-free paper blew my mind, and I’ve been a fangirl ever since.

The name of the company? KLS PurePrint.

The second time I met Kasper, the aforementioned representative, he scolded me because the so-called green municipality I was working at didn’t have chargers for electric vehicles. Yep, PurePrint is a company that is green to the bone while delivering great products. Every. Single. Time.

They are Scandinavia’s only cradle-to-cradle certified printing company, and are one of only three companies IN THE WORLD with the certification.

They also serve as a personal inspiration on how to use sustainability to survive and thrive in changing markets. In PurePrint’s case, they used their green products to stay afloat in a diminishing market.

100 years ago, there were 2000 printing companies in Denmark. Now there are 80. PurePrint is one of them.

See, I told you I was a fangirl, and with good reason.

The best part? They are cost-competitive because they know the only way to stay in the game.

Building trust means loyal customers

Why am I raving about this? Because it’s products like these, that give us hope and builds trust.

Having Christmas cards or business cards made entirely of cradle-to-cradle material is a great conversation starter, and I for one have used it countless times.

“Here’s my card. Oh, by the way, this card is so cool, it’s made out of 100% compostable materials, and it’s so clean you can eat it!”

It’s also a way for you to send a powerful message to your audience:

You’re not just thinking of sustainability in your given service or product, you are practicing what you preach. You went that step further to make sure you leave nothing but your legacy behind.

Why are your customers buying products from you? Because they care about the environment, and they know we collectively have a responsibility to do better.

Imagine your customer opening a package from you and finding cradle-to-cradle certified paper or compostable packaging. No chemicals, no heavy metals, no microplastics.

Imagine what that experience feels like for your customer, when he is already purchasing from you, a green company?

What is your customer going to think about you? How likely are they to buy more products from you and spread the word about your brand?

These products are cost-competitive, but you win customer loyalty, and thereby market shares. You can even use these products to document your work with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

It’s a triple win. Your customers are happy, you expand your customer base and sales, and most importantly, you ease the pressure on natural resources.

Stand out from the competition

I know you are busy tending to your primary product or service, as you should be, but bear in mind that you amplify your brand and the trust between you and your customer when you go the extra mile.

Think about it, your customer has a business card or greeting card from you — that they can eat!

Then they meet your competitor, who hands them a shiny business card that’s clearly not sustainable.

What’s happening in the mind of your customer at that moment? I’ll tell you what’s happening: They’re looking at the shiny card, thinking;

‘Well, it’s pretty, but I’m sure it’s full of chemicals — I definitely shouldn’t eat it.’

BOOM!

There’s your leg up. Now regardless of what your competition says, that card is going to be a reminder that you share the values of your clients. Your competitor doesn’t.

For me, the tipping point was learning that 1/3 of fast food wrapping in the EU contains dangerously high levels of fluorinated substances, which has been linked to all kinds of immune system issues, like cancer.

They don’t break down over time, meaning they just accumulate in you.

These were even found in muffin forms. I made muffins for an 8-year-old’s birthday party, so learning about this research changed my shopping habits DRASTICALLY.

If you can honestly tell your customers that your packaging is 100% free of fluorinated substances, that awesome. But compare it with the fact that your competitors offer a 1 in 3 chance of dangerously high levels of it fluorinated substances, where will your customers go?

This doesn’t have to be just paper or packaging. Look at your products, your uniforms, your electricity  — if you dedicate yourself to making small, but sustainable changes in your company, you can set yourself apart from the rest of those in your field. And let’s not forget all the sweet karma points you score for simply making the world a little bit better.

My prediction is, that we’re going to see a lot of this in the coming years, especially since companies like Coca-cola and Nike, have started flashing a greener agenda.

Now is the time when genuinely green professionals can make themselves stand out, by being firstmovers.

Get on board, and make Christmas greener

If you want to get on the cradle-to-cradle train and showcase your commitment as a sustainable professional, read on.

SomethingGreen works with content and copy from a sustainable behavioral change angle. This means we write anything promoting green actions.

From web pages, and newsletters, to company greeting cards, we’ve got your back. We also do graphic design and project management.

And of course, we use only cradle-to-cradle certified paper for our printed materials.

Here are some things we’ve worked on:

• Business cards
• Gift cards and greeting cards
• Annual reports and strategies
• Booklets on recycling
• Letters
• Stickers for recycling bins (not cradle-to-cradle, sadly)

So get in touch and let’s make you stand out from your competitors while making the world just a bit better.

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The post Have a cradle-to-cradle Christmas — Have a cradle-to-cradle Christmas — Use the holidays to promote sustainability and build trust appeared first on Something Green.

Warning: This post contains crude language.

When working in the environmental sector, you’ll come across a target audience that’s considered hard to reach.

I’ve talked about the importance of knowing your audience before, but in the field of sustainability one segment stands out as the infamous impossible-audience.

These are the ‘I don’t care’ people.

I don’t want to get slapped with the prejudice hammer, but this audience also often consists of males working in construction, carpentry, and similar jobs.

The following is a great example of why you should never give up when you encounter a hard audience or experience a push back.

Boys will be..?

My brother works as the department manager in a company that produces industrial size printers.

It is a very male-dominated workplace, and the tone is often crude and with sexual tones. We all know workplaces like that.

That last time I saw my brother, he told me about his latest team meeting.

He runs a team of 14 men. Once a week they have a team meeting to address work-related matters.

At the last meeting, my brother had made and brought with him a little game (this is where it gets crude).

The Game

He pulled to pieces of paper out and said:

‘I brought a game with me. I want you to solve this puzzle. What do the signs say?’

He held up the first sign: ‘Puh’

Then, he dramatically said the word and got his team to join in, in a collective ‘Puuh!’

He held up the second sign: ‘Say’

Again, with a dramatical flair, he got his whole team on board: ‘Say!’

‘What do the signs spell out?’

‘Puhhh-saaaay’, ‘Puh-say’, ‘Pu**y!’.

(Yes, I’m bleeping the above. Hopefully, you get it. If not, ask a friend. Not a coworker, not a family member, but a friend)

My brother got a big laugh from around the table, and a couple of groin-related jokes.

‘I have one more’ he said, and pulled out two additional pieces of paper. The second round was about to start.

‘Onl’. He looked in anticipation and got the table to join in. ‘Ooonl’.

‘Paapr’. The crowd joined in. ‘Paapr!’

My bother continued ‘Onl –paapr’ ‘Only-paapr’ ‘ONLY-PAPER!’

He pointed to the recycling bin in the corner of the room.

‘That bin is only for paper’, he said to the perplexed crowd.

‘Yesterday I saw someone had put a banana peel in it. If we throw biodegradable in the paper bin, and that goes to the treatment facility, we might end up contaminating a ton of paper because it rots and spreads bacteria. Then the paper can’t be recycled and has to be burned. Waste of money, waste of resources. So can we now agree that Onl Paapr goes in the bin?’

He had everyone’s attention. They nodded and verbally confirmed. The bin was for paper only.

Just to recap, that’s 14 men, who just laughed at a pu**y joke, now agreeing that it’s important to recycle. When was the last time you heard about something like that?

Why it worked — Environmental Communication at its best

My brother’s a smart cookie and there’s a reason why he’s head of his department at such a young age. He’s also been forced to listen to my ramblings about recycling and psychology for, well, a long time.

He knows that telling his men off, and mentally hitting them in the head with something as uninteresting to them as recycling, isn’t going to work.

Furthermore, he knows he needs their attention, and that laughter is a much better tool than fear, and being told off.

He broke their mental barrier to recycling by inserting it right after a locker-room joke.

The first joke was a setup, introducing them to a game where the reward would be a dirty word. By doing that, he had them all on the edge of their seats, trying to spot the dirty word in the second round. What would it be this time? Even dirtier?

They were open to taking in new information. They were engaged, trying to be the first to figure out the next word.

And bam! Information about recycling.

You might be wondering why it’s even a big deal getting this segment onboard the recycling train. Because daily environmental actions, like recycling, open up a door for a deeper conversation about sustainability. It’s your entry point to substantial change.

The takeaway — you can make it sexy!

No target group is impossible to reach. I repeat:

No target group is impossible to reach!

You just have to know who you’re dealing with, and be willing to work on their terms, be it technical reports and pu**y jokes.

Set up a situation where your audience is open to taking in new information.

In conclusion:

Recycling, high-five bro

Want more dirty, I mean fun advice on pro-environmental behavior? Add me on LinkedIn or go to Somethinggreen.org to get your smile on.

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Hi, my name is Mona and I’m a coffee addict.

Seeing as it’s one of my only vises in life, I don’t really mind it. But it does mean that I am not a functional human being without my morning Joe, and that is what prompted today’s post.

I’m currently staying with some friends who are very techy. Their house is filled with robots, drones, and really cool gadgets. As well, their coffee maker is really advanced, you know the kind that has an inbuilt alarm so it can have the coffee ready for you before you’re out of bed. It also has an inbuilt grinder so you can get fresh coffee. Amazing, right? Wrong!

The darn thing never works, and in its effort to be as simple as possible, it only has one on/off button and a nob that also works as a button. This morning I spend 15 minutes trying to get it to grind the beans. 15! I’m not gonna brand shame so I won’t tell you the name of the coffee machine.

There were just too few buttons and no matter what I pushed, or in which order, it didn’t work. In the end, I gave up. I sat defeated and ate my breakfast with a glass of water.

Why am I telling you this? Because green design matters.

Because a coffee maker that’s too complicated to operate is a spot-on example of how our world is way more complicated than it needs to be.

And the same goes for acting environmentally friendly.

If you live in a westernized country or the metropolises of high-tech South East Asia, you probably have some sort of waste management and recycling scheme.

Those schemes have rules, and those rules are often really complicated and with a large set of exceptions. This is because of technical requirements from the waste treatment facilities. It makes recycling confusing for us mortals who just want to know how to sort our waste in the right way.

Likewise, if you’re gonna purchase a new car, and you want to get one that is environmentally friendly, what do you get? One with good mileage? An electric? A used car? Which is better? The answer is the same, ‘Well it depends…’

But we don’t want to dig into why there are so many differences in regards to buying an environmentally friendly car, we just want the answer: What is the best car I can buy if I care about the environment?

Acting environmentally friendly can be hard and complicated because our world is unnecessarily complicated.

If you promoting a greener behavior, or selling a green product, it is your job to make it as easy as possible for your audience/consumer, to do the right thing.

How to make sustainable products or services

Seeing as I still haven’t had coffee yet, I’ll give you the bare minimum.

Test it! Then test it. And then test it again.

If you’re asking someone to act in a different way, you need to test if what you are asking them is sufficiently easy and understandable. Test your message or product over and over until you have made it as approachable as possible.

I call this the Grandma Test.

Edit (06.08.18): I was actually meeting my grandma after writing this, so I took the opportunity to put a face to the concept. Here she is.

If I can explain something in a way that even my stubborn, 82-year-old grandma gets it, then I’m on to something.

My formal education is Technological Socio-Economical Planner.

That fails the grandma test massively. Therefore I and most of my old uni buddies boil it down to the essence: Environmental Planner. Or as grandma says, ‘Something with environment.’

This is where the discussion of dumbing down usually comes up. I will say this until I am in my grave:

It’s not about dumbing down, it’s about removing unnecessary complexity.

I’m not a stupid person, nor am I a tech illiterate, but I’ll remind you that I battled the coffee maker for 15 minutes, and lost!

That’s what happens when things get too fancy.

Maybe when I have had my coffee, I’ll write the post about why humans always make things more complicated and what it means for our environment, and society as a whole.

For now, I highly advise you that whatever change you want to make in the world, you make sure that your actions are easy to follow and that you keep your instructions clear.

And on that note, I’m gonna dig out the old school Italian espresso maker, because that never fails me.

Want more caffeinated advice on pro-environmental behavior? Add me on LinkedIn or go to Somethinggreen.org to get your dose.

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Yesterday while scrolling through my LinkedIn feed, I came across the following article from the World Economic Forum.

90% of plastic polluting our oceans comes from just 10 rivers

This is a really interesting subject and I wanted to know more, however, what really got me was the words the WEF decided should go along with it:

’Eight of them are in Asia, two in Africa’

‘Urg’ I thought to myself. ‘That’s a bad choice of words for this piece’.

The World Economic Forum, an International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation, is committed to improving the state of the world. This fact makes the above even more problematic.

Though in line with the article and truthful in it’s nature, that small sentence does way more harm than good. It’s working as a hindrance for sustainable development.

Why words matter

Let’s deconstruct the sentence.

By writing ’Eight of them are in Asia, two in Africa’, it’s easy to infer, that no other continent in the world is home to one of the rivers causing 90% of the pollution. This is still completely true and in line with the article but it has unfortunate side effects:

1. You are basically saying to everyone outside these geographical areas, that this problem is confined to two specific regions, which make people outside these areas distance themselves from the problem, seeing as it’s “over there”. It becomes Somebody Else’s Problem*
2. People who actively take steps to lower their plastic waste feel discouraged because they are let to believe that their actions have no impact at all. This will leave them less likely to want to change their habits or push for change in the future.

Additionally, you risk enhancing old believes that Asia and Africa do not care about the environment. This is, of course, a generalization, not to mention an outdated view of the two continents but unfortunately, the western part of the world still views Asia and Africa as lazy, indifferent or unknowledgeable to environmental issues.

What to do instead

Had they instead chosen a solution-orientated caption, they could have fed into the positive wave of change already taken place around the world – the focus on oceanic plastic pollution. If the World Economic Forum wanted to leave the reader more informed but also more likely to support anti-pollution initiatives in the future, they could have replaced the caption with something like this:

‘By knowing which 10 we can focus on targeted solutions, with higher success rates’ 

They could even just have copied points from the article itself, for instance:

‘The rivers all had two things in common; a generally high population living in the surrounding region – sometimes into the hundreds of millions – and a less than ideal waste management process’

Why it works

The first example is simply putting a positive outlook on a dire situation. Yes, the ocean is filled with plastic, but by pinpointing the 10 biggest sources, we can act.

Action is the keyword, because only presenting your audience with the (often negative) facts of global pollution issues and climate change, serves as an emotional paralyzer.

What the heart hears is: The world sucks and no one, especially you, can do anything about it. You might as well go back to facebook and kittens.

Instead, by choosing a more positive angle you are telling your audience, yes, this is a bad situation, but knowing the facts about it gives us the power to act.

In the second example, you’re getting even more specific in regards to what needs to be done, so we can turn the problem around.

It would send a signal that 90% of the world’s oceanic plastic pollution is caused by manageable problems that we already know the solutions to – waste management.

Having spent half a decade in waste management I guarantee you that less-than-ideal-waste management is not the same as impossible waste management.

But wasn’t it just click-bait?

Possibly. I mean, I clicked on the article. One could argue, that the caption is just right because it evokes resentfulness towards the places responsible for it. But then what? You would have to read the article to the end to get the positive news. And even this is still an issue because you just confirmed the preconceived notion that Asia doesn’t care, meaning that your audience is actually more likely to dismiss the positive news about the advances in Asia because it contradicts a strong held believe – that Asia pollutes, and don’t care. This is what’s known as the backfire effect. You can find a more colorful description of the backfire effect here.

Even if it is just a click-bait aimed at the WEF’s target audience, would you really want to risk pushing everyone who scrolls past the article even further away from taking action on the subject?

Small tweaks – Big outcome

I chose to write about this specific article from the World Economic Forum, for two reasons. Firstly because of their inherent role as a promoter of sustainable change, and secondly because their article was well written and had a great balance of facts and behavioral change elements.

The article clarifies how big of an effort China is making to intensify waste management, and mentions Delhi’s ban on disposable plastic. Furthermore, at the bottom of the article, you can find links to articles about how to combat plastic pollution – also known as a call to action.

I want to stress that I think weforum.org overall produces great content and I am a happy reader. Like this nice whale piece, below. It has a positive headline and caption, as well as a great photo – there’s even a sea pun!

But the devil is in the detail, and small tweaks like the above can push sustainable development much faster.

By empowering the audience with a positive outlook, you are allowing for much more support towards passing the necessary legislation, investing in alternative products or cleanup technologies, and willingness to change habits. Like giving your audience concrete advice on social media, complete with jokes and pictures.

This also means saving time and money for the companies and regulatory bodies working to solve the problem. But most importantly, you work towards removing more plastic out of our oceans.

*As coined by the great Douglas Adam, Somebody Else’ Problem refers to people’s ability to simply ignore things they don’t want to deal with.

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The post Your words matter — how big organizations accidentally hinder sustainable change appeared first on Something Green.