Do we need to reset the way we talk about climate change and sustainability? That was a common question across the discussions at this week’s Reset Connect North conference.
As pictured above, Professor Piers Forster of the UK’s Climate Change Committee had a clear message about the reality of the climate crisis. Aimed at what he called the orange elephant in the room, it cut through a lot of blether about how businesses can respond to the US government’s science-denying assault on climate action and the wider environmental, social and governance (ESG) movement.
We do need to keep talking about the reality of climate change, and the economic benefits of limiting the damage. We need to showcase the businesses and communities who are profiting from taking action. And we need to tell better stories than the people who’d block that action for their own short-term gains.
There are reasons to be optimistic, Forster emphasised in his keynote speech. Most countries are still pushing ahead with climate action. Even within the US, there’s some good things happening at the state level.
Here in the UK, we are doing a better job than many realise. “We really can decarbonise the country and at the same time grow our economy,” Forster noted. “It’s ultimately in our economic interest to make this investment as a country.”
Obviously, you’re not going to get many people arguing against climate action at a sustainability conference like Reset Connect. But across the breadth of the sectors represented, there was a common refrain that ESG is just good business whether you’re an innovator, manufacturer, housebuilder, local politician, film-maker or insurer.
As Rupert Bull of The Disruption House put it during an investment panel: “A sustainable business is a well-run business.”
Communication challenges
The clear messages from Bull and Forster did contrast with some of the other panels. Frustratingly, the sustainability world remains deeply mired in offputting jargon, acronyms and initialisms. That’s inevitably a risk when your work straddles the spheres of policy, accounting and engineering.
At one point, I found myself listening to a debate about the right terminology for the S part of ESG. Should we talk about social value, social impact, place-making, or outcomes? Who really cares?
My advice would be to use whatever terms preferred by your public sector stakeholders when you’re talking directly to them. But do try to talk in normal human terms to everyone else.
If you’re not communicating clearly with the people you need to reach, you’re going to have problems. A panel on sustainable cities highlighted the vital role of visibility for delivering effective infrastructure projects. People need to see when things are changing, as a first step to understanding its benefits.
“We’ve got to make the case, we’ve got to tell the stories,” said Christopher Hammond, head of the UK100 network of local government leaders. “How we tell those individual stories of transformation for people builds long-term credibility for what we’re trying to do.”
Panel after panel referenced the need for sustainability professionals to be better at communicating the value of their work. Ironically, that’s even a problem in the media and creative sector. “We need to be better story-tellers, and be better at persuading people that this is the right way to go,” according to Beatrice Neumann of Screen Yorkshire.
Standards and creativity
Apart from awareness-raising, communications need to be crystal-clear when discussing the specific environmental benefits of a product or service. I’ve written before about the greenwashing risks of ambiguous language in marketing communications.
Worries about greenwashing can also scare off investors, especially in markets such as carbon offsetting which can be vulnerable to the quick-buck merchants. That’s a worry in land and nature-based programmes, including the legislation-led world of Biodiversity Net Gain projects.
You need to get the language right, in terms which investors or other stakeholders can understand. You also need to be open and honest with your supporting data. Trusted common standards can be invaluable. Will Lockhart, deputy director of nature markets and investment at Defra, talked about how his team are working with the British Standards Institute to give investors confidence in nature-based projects.
I did raise an eyebrow in one session, at a claim that a waste-to-energy scheme was carbon-negative. The accounting there seemed to depend on avoided emissions elsewhere, not actual removals. It’s a moot point, but that kind of ambiguity can easily lead to greenwashing accusations and loss of trust.
But while accounting shouldn’t be creative, communication can be. I enjoyed two side events featuring different kinds of talking about sustainability, as a welcome break from the heavier discussions.
Clare Townley entertained an enthusiastic audience with her satirical poetry on sustainability topics. And Emily Diamand of Nature North discussed how she uses creative writing exercises to break down barriers between different groups, such as conservation workers and upland farmers.
Cleantech investment
Venture capital (VC) is another world with a language of its own. I did a lot of work around VC in the early/mid 2000s, covering that first big wave of cleantech investment, so was particularly interested in Reset Connect’s closing session on venture investment.
One thing that I was quite surprised hadn’t changed was that label “cleantech”. The panel title said “ClimateTech”, but all the participants quickly reverted to the older term.
Again, the discussion was largely around responding to the political shift in the US. That has already contributed to falling global investment in the cleantech category, alongside the all-consuming mania for AI.
As noted by Agnes Czako of AirEx, every investment pitch now has to include an AI angle to win VC interest.
AirEx is developing smart ventilation bricks which help reduce domestic heat loss and damp. Physical products are essential for climate action, but are more challenging to scale up and bring to market than software plays.
Cleantech is still strong as an investment category in the UK and Europe, however. Roland Harwood of the Climate Tech Supercluster talked about the cluster of ventures within four hours of London which is seeing increasing interest from US-based investors. “It remains long-term the biggest investment opportunity on the planet,” he emphasised.
Like AI today, cleantech was always a broad and sometimes hazy term. A lot of what would once have been pushed as cleantech is now called something else. The talk is less about net zero and climate, and more about health, energy security and resilience. The narratives and the way we talk around that are changing, Harwood noted.
That does raise the risk of greenhushing, and ceding ground to competing interests. While it’s often sensible to change your language to reflect your stakeholder’s preferences, when your political stakeholders have become belligerent bullshitters and fossil fuel evangelists, you will have to make some hard ethical decisions.
After all, you can’t change physical facts. And you can’t ignore the elephant in the room.