The missing link in communication on sustainable cities

For at least the past two decades scientists and experts have all pointed to the urgent need of changing the way our world functions and the way we, its users treat it. For the majority of the population, however, it does not seem to register the importance of this transition – of changing the way energy is produced, distributed or consumed. But, why this discord? This article aims at exploring, what I perceive, as a missing link in communication between the settled science, the media, and human behavior. 

Why communicating about sustainability and climate change is so difficult?
Copenhagen was the fifteenth step of many that the international community has taken towards reaching a global deal on the environment and climate change. Never in the history of media has an event that size had that many covering journalists than COP15 in Copenhagen. Nevertheless, because COP15 in Copenhagen became this mayor media event, the attending journalists alongside the City of Copenhagen were given a rich opportunity to frame and change the narrative of the climate change issue considerably. Sadly, that never happened. This example raises a question of the media’s role in the climate change.

Did Copenhagen fail because of the information overload or the blurry narrative? Until now the narrative has been emphasizing the uncertainties, worries, and contraries related greenhouse gas emission and climate change. But, why really creating a drama and reinforce fear in society when we, the messengers, truly can have an enlightening role? So far, communication about climate change facts and adaption tend to carry a dystopian connotation – an apocalyptic voice – aiming to change behavior based on fear. Results from Reuters report, however, points to the fact that the D-day communication strategy is ineffective and certainly does not encourage the general population to engage in the green transition.  

The most efficient form of communication should provide knowledge based on best- and next-practice examples from persons, cities and countries that add value to the life for a person, a community, a city or region in the broadest perspective. Despite the disappointment of COP15 I somehow still believe that we have learned something when it comes to communication. As I see it, the narrative is stating to change. More communication revolves around narratives, best- and next practice case examples.
 

UNEP’s Task Force on Communication and Sustainable Lifestyle
Generally speaking people are more likely to take action when they are introduced to the opportunities rather than the dark consequences of not acting. The United Nations Environmental Program recently released a report named Task Force on Sustainable Lifestyles, which provides facts and insights on the present disconnection between settled sciences facts and daily human behavior. The report finds that today’s communication about climate change and sustainability revolves around few normative regulations and often self-denial such as “don’t drive”; don’t eat meet; “use less energy”; “consume only biodynamic goods” etc. These statements might be right. Yet, what is at stake here is the actual communication methodology, which is obviously not attractive to any citizen. 

The report also finds that communication when speaking of climate change adaption and sustainable development so far, hasn’t been emphasizing the number of possibilities related to changing into a greener energy system or how this transition will add value to our daily lives. In fact, in my perception, most communication today carries an apocalyptic undertone, which I believe ought to change asap. Because, as the UNEP report underlines:

“it is better to show the positive outcome that can emerge if a more sustainable lifestyle is adopted rather than preaching negative consequences of the status without emphasizing any optimism or possibilities for the future.”

Project Green Light: Shaping an Image of a Sustainable Future
As the Project Green Light underlines, it has been 20 years since the UN decided that climate change need to be taken seriously – and still we don’t really know what it is all about or how to communicate about it. Project Green Light highlight that fact that today’s communication on climate change and sustainability revolves around few normative regulations and self-denial - and I personally agree. The way in which many companies, NGO’s and politicians communicate about their sustainability strategy and products is either way too complex or basically too focused on D-day scenarios. Changing the narrative on climate change and sustainability to one that is encouraging, positive, and didactic both verbally and visually as the Project Green Light, and project manager Laura Storm, from the Danish think tank Monday Morning suggest, is in my opinion, more urgent than ever before.   

Here Project Green Light (PGL) comes into play. PGL is a global communication project focused on developing a new approach to the way we communicate about climate change and sustainability. The project is derived from the question about how to reach out to every man, politicians and business leaders cross-culturally. Visualizing and proposing a sustainable future that both you and I can see ourselves in – shaping a sustainable image of our world, our city and our neighborhood, and our house that we actually can identify with – will according to PGL make it easier for people around the world to understand and engaged in the process of imagining and making our individual and collective sustainable future. Yet, the world and city image produced through this individual and collective image making process, as I see it, must never determine either form content.   

The image making process as well as the shaped image as such should be generic and entirely open-ended. Every image we create of our world, of our locality, in our life and in our minds, drives from both extrovert observations and introvert personal experiences, that shape the way we percive and create images. Creating an image of the sustainable future, therefore consists of shaping an image derived from multiple individual and collective, extrovert and introvert images. Yet, looking at society today there are in fact few worldwide images that somehow seem to move beyond every man’s individual perception: The ideal world 'utopia' is one of them, the mightmare 'dystopia' is the other. Thus, returning to the missing link in communicating climate change and sustainability, the main challenge might be, to encompass these individual and collective images? And finally, will that be enough to shape an image that everyman can identify with - and image that actually move you and I further in our faith in this image and this reality?  

Shaping a Green Image of Images
Thus, moving to the end of this article, two issues should be highlighted: On one hand climate change and sustainability are two notoriously difficult subjects to tackle. On the other hand equally complex are these to communicate and report on. We recognize that scientists and experts in the field are not always capable of communicating the message regarding climate change to the rest of us. Here journalists, social media, bloggers etc. play an important role as messengers and mediators between the settled science and everyman. Thus, looking at the way in which these messengers could communicate the significance of climate change, the main purpose here should be about carrying, delivering, and framing in a peculiar way that unite scientific data, technological advance, politics, and strategic world image with the yours and mine every day life and personal images.  

I’m convinced (and simultaneously hoping) that we are moving towards the creation of a momentum in communication practice about climate change and sustainability. A change in communication that recognizes and emphasizes the link between the significant, the signifier, and the signified is key to this matter. The communication challenge and questions this raises are not meant to answer whether or not communication should get more aggressive or less dramatic. On the contrary based in the issues addressed in this article the main concern should revolve around how we individually and in collective can communicate better and together create something meaningful for everyone, which might be all we need to set off the sustainable transition technologically, visually, physically and mentally.