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Partnering for Sustainability – Success Stories

Sustainability and the Media – a summary of insights from CIELAP's conferences

Why sustainability stories are hard to get published:

• The issues are complex. They play out over long periods of time, involve many parties, are political, and it is often difficult to know who to believe. There is often suspicion of good news stories. And it’s hard to make challenging and complicated issues compelling.
• The media in Canada tend to be followers, not leaders. They take cues from government and polls, and neither has given clear messages.
• It is much easier to report on conflict than issues in general.
• Media outlets are contacted more often and with more messages. It is very difficult to get new stories noticed because of the constant barrage of story ideas.
• There is a lack of education on the reporters’ side. There are no programs on sustainability at journalism schools and so they don't get introduced to this topic.
• There are poor and ineffective external communication strategies. Not many NGOs have public relations people. Their communication pieces look like they are written by a committee; there is no link to the 'real world'.

How to communicate in a way that brings about more sustainable behaviour:

• Awareness–raising is not enough - it doesn’t necessarily affect actions on the ground;
• Explaining global trends like climate change is much easier when it can be related to the community (localize, localize, localize);
• Ideas need to be communicated simply, and explanations need to point out how issues affect people - emotional reactions are more useful than rational explanation;
• Messages need to be sent in many different ways through many different channels (use tv for inspiration, magazines for perspectives and connecting groups, radio for thoughtful ideas, and books for providing more detail to those already engaged);
• There is a need to move from trying to send single messages to elevating the level of discussion and involvement on each issue;
• Within the sustainability movement, it is better to agree on the themes that should be addressed, rather than agreeing on a message;
• Communicators need to not act as critics but like governors, providing solutions for those who don’t agree with them.
• People need to be introduced to other people who are doing ingenious things, and given practical solutions and actionable information.

Readers have a pent-up demand to read about environmental issues, but not about dread, doom and gloom. They want to hear about something positive, constructive, something actually dealing with these issues. You need to get into the story by focusing first on the solution, and then you can discuss the problem. The Montreal Protocol, full cost accounting, and the triple bottom line have been practical potential solutions.

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