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Category: engaging stakeholders in sustainability

  • Emergency or not emergency, that is the question

    Emergency or not emergency, that is the question

    Last week, my sister sent me an Instagram post in which an uber-clever creator shared the headline from a media outlet and added his own spin to it:

    “London, conference on extreme heat cancelled due to extreme heat.

    Soon we will have:

    Conference for asocial individuals cancelled because they didn’t want to meet people

    Conference for indecisive people cancelled… or maybe not

    Conference of mothers cancelled because I said so!

    …”

    I’m all for making the climate crisis a topic to be talked about, and even joked about. I’m a big fan of climate comedy.

    But this time, I didn’t laugh.

    It felt way too real.

    Emergency or not emergency?

    Last week I attended a couple of events organised as part of London Climate Week. This is an annual cluster of events run in the capital to raise awareness of the state of the climate and the actions needed to address our current challenges.

    The day I went, London’s temperature broke the record as the highest ever recorded in June: 36 degrees C.

    As I was sweating through every layer I was wearing, walking under the blazing sun, I felt relief entering the Barbican cinema theatre to watch the People’s Emergency Briefing: Chris Peckham’s short film based on the National Emergency Briefing delivered in Westminster to national decision-makers in November 2025. You you want to watch it, you can find a public screening on their website.

    The relief lasted for about 15 minutes. Then the film started.

    Even though I have been working in sustainability for two decades, I squirmed in my seat throughout the show, feeling deeply uncomfortable, bombarded by the terrible news about the state of the current climate and related consequences for 50 minutes.

    At the end, we had just enough “but we can still do something to change the catastrophe we are heading towards at full speed” not to make us want to disappear immediately six feet under.

    A cocktail of shame, guilt, fear, and helplessness was on everyone’s face. Some people left before the post-film debate started. Maybe they didn’t feel as bad as I did and wanted to move on with their lives or felt that that was more than enough information for a single day.

    Pair this incredibly sombering viewing with the hottest temperature of the year, and it’s very hard to keep being stubbornly optimistic, as I always suggest you do.

    And that’s the point of this article.

    What do strong expressions like “emergency”, “crisis” or “hottest on record” do to your nervous system?

    Do they make you want to do something now?

    Do they make you lose the will to live?

    Or do they make you book your next holiday to the Maldives because “f*ck it, we are doomed anyway”?

    Language is a complex beast when it comes to persuasion and behavioural change, and I don’t think we have cracked it completely.

    Some people respond to just information: this is the state we are in. You need to change. And they do.

    Most people, though, need more emotional messages to change: shock, fear, or even positive emotions, like love, compassion, pride, but especially hope, which is some form of reassurance that their actions and contributions will count for something.

    In the case of climate, most frightened people convey frightening messages, and most ordinary people have enough on their plate (keeping their families going, putting bread on the table and so on), that worrying about something that looks so scary and impossible to solve is not on their radar. So they just switch off.

    Most messaging around the climate is frightening indeed, because that’s the reality: it’s genuinely bad, we are running out of time, and we need to do something about it.

    However, you wouldn’t want the fire alarm to be blaring all the time, because people, instead of trying to put out the fire, would either run away, react angrily, or stop listening to it altogether.

    Likewise, you need to tailor the language you use in your climate messaging to avoid one of the following responses:

    • fight (rioting in the street, fighting for food in supermarkets, escalating violence),
    • flight (escape to a different reality, endlessly scrolling social media, booking a flight to forget the problems exist)
    • freeze (do absolutely nothing and carry on business-as-usual style).

    Strong, emergency language with no actionable steps generates in most people those instinctive, reptile reactions our brains activate to protect us from harm.

    I prefer to opt for a different approach: active hope.

    Active Hope: what it is and how to practise it

    Active hope is more sophisticated but has the advantage of being gentler on the nervous system and guides people to positive actions, instead of depression, numbness or hysteria.

    It was first devised as a four-step reiterating “work that reconnects” by Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone (read more here):

    1. Coming from Gratitude.
    2. Honouring Our Pain for the World
    3. Seeing with New Eyes
    4. Going Forth.

    Let’s look at them one by one.

    Coming from Gratitude

    Developing our sense of wonder and appreciation for what we do have, before we grieve for what we don’t is profoundly strengthening.

    Research indicates that gratitude can lower the risk of depression, enhance physical health and even prolong our lives.

    Focusing your attention on what you are thankful for in everyday life can bring up a more positive attitude towards life in general, especially if you make it a regular practice.

    I keep a pebble in my coat’s pocket so that every time I put a hand in my pocket, I remember to be grateful for what I have in my life.

    To this practice I would add some form of meditative practice, either formal sitting down and meditating, or something else that has similar effects, like breathwork, or even repetitive sport practices (e.g. swimming, running, walking, yoga, etc.) and hobbies (e.g. singing, knitting, crocheting, drawing, dancing, etc.).

    Together they will help regulate your nervous system, ready for the next steps.

    Honouring Our Pain for the World

    When I was watching that film last week, I made sure I breathed deeply during the most upsetting parts. I imagined taking it all in, and breathing it out through my heart (a practice described in the Active Hope book). If you keep the pain inside, it can annihilate you. It’s important to acknowledge the pain in the world, then gently let it go, so that you are aware, you feel it, but it doesn’t make you flee, fight, or freeze.

    Seeing with New Eyes

    This stage is about seeing ourselves as a part of the wider ecosystem, much wider than your physical reality and your timeline, and about seeing and encouraging interconnections instead of individualism. Fostering co-creation with others in conversations, projects, every day activities.

    On our own we can feel lost and insignificant, with others we can make a difference and support each other. I love the example that the book offers of a picture in a newspaper: if you look at it under a microscope, you can see its made of thousands of little dots that, on their own, don’t seem to do much, but action is often invisible at the level at which the action is taken.

    Original photo by Photo by Timon Studler on Unsplash. Modified with Claude AI.

    Seeing with new eyes means alsochoosing to answer our calls to action, drawing from our individual strengths and recognising other people’s strengths, choosing to respond with courage, determination and creativity every day.

    On this last quality, I’d like to add that action is not necessarely “just” protesting in front of Parliament, or on the streets.

    Activism can also be quiet and behind the scenes, and I would invite you to find your own way to act, one that feels aligned with your strengths, values and personality.

    For instance, after the film, I decided to start a craftivism movement where I live. I am creative by nature, and I love the idea of creating something beautiful that has the potential to generate deep insights and feelings in our MP and other people of power, more than a letter or email would.

    Going Forth

    In this step, we look at the inspiring vision, we seek ways to paint it vividly in our collective imagination, so that we keep our eyes on the target.

    It’s also about supporting others and receiving support, and looking after our energy and resilience so that we can keep going.

    So, I don’t regret watching the People’s Emergency Briefing. On the opposite, it wasn’t easy viewing, but it was necessary, and I would invite you to watch it too. However, make sure you let it go through you, and that you channel that new awareness into meaningful, aligned action.

    And if you have already watched it, I’d love to know what you thought of it.

  • Why birds don’t need a meeting to change direction

    Why birds don’t need a meeting to change direction

    Last week, in the Green Light Community, we watched a video of starlings doing what starlings do best: swooping, swirling, and somehow never crashing into each other despite there being absolutely no leader, no plan, and no group chat coordinating it all.

    And it turns out those birds might be better at influencing change than most sustainability leaders I know (myself included).

    Most of us in this space share the same problem, i.e. we tend to believe we have to do everything ourselves.

    We think we need to convince everyone (our whole team, our whole board, our entire community), all at once, all of our ideas, all the time. And when that feels impossible and exhausting (because it is), we get overwhelmed. Then we feel guilty for not doing enough. And round and round it goes.

    So, if you’ve ever felt like engaging your audiences in sustainability is something you’re dragging uphill on your own, this one’s for you.

    What the birds are actually doing

    Watch a flock of starlings and ask yourself: who’s in charge? Who told them all to turn left at the same time, or head down to the trees together?

    Nobody. There’s no leader bird with a clipboard and a megaphone.

    According to research on flocking behaviour (this comes from the short, fascinating paper Flocks, Herds, and Schools: A Distributed Behavioural Model by Craig W. Reynolds (1987), if you want to go down that rabbit hole), each bird is just following three simple rules, in order of importance:

    1. Collision avoidance — don’t crash into your nearby flockmates
    2. Velocity matching — try to fly at roughly the same speed as the birds around you
    3. Flock centring — try to stay close to the birds nearby.

    What’s the common thread?

    Every single bird is paying attention to the few birds right next to it. Not the whole flock. Not the birds three hundred metres away. Just the ones nearby.

    Why this matters for influence (and why “six seven” went viral)

    Stick with me here, because this is where it gets useful.

    Think about how trends actually spread, even the daft ones. If you’ve got kids, you’ll know about “six seven,” that bizarre meme that took over playgrounds for about a year and then vanished without explanation (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, consider yourself lucky, and also: ask any nearby ten-year-old).

    It didn’t spread because one person shouted it at a stadium and everyone heard it simultaneously. It spread person to person, nearby to nearby, much like our birds.

    But why do some things spread and others don’t?

    The real common denominator is this: likability and belonging. We adopt behaviours from people we like, people we trust, and people who we feel like they are part of our tribe.

    So, engaging our stakeholders in sustainability will not be as easy as spreading “six seven”. Perhaps the issue is that, right now, our sustainability initiatives aren’t as likeable yet.

    But don’t worry because we can fix that.

    Two ways to spread a sustainability idea: sprinkler vs. firehose

    This is a framework from a book called The Catalyst (by behavioural marketing researcher Jonah Berger), which gives us a really useful lens for thinking about how to roll out change.

    The sprinkler approach means spreading your sustainability message thin across lots of people in lots of different groups: a quick mention here, a quick mention there. This works brilliantly when the ask is easy. Think: “Hey, there’s a company that’ll collect our food waste for free and turn it into compost: just chuck your banana peels in this bin.” Low barrier, feels good, no real change required. Tell two people in two different groups, and it spreads almost effortlessly.

    The firehose approach is the opposite: instead of spreading thin, you concentrate your effort on one or two people within a single group. You give them the full picture with proof, support, templates, even your time. This is what you need when the ask is harder. Things like “let’s track our carbon emissions” or “let’s reduce car use across the district” come with resistance, because people need proof before they’ll make any significant behavioural change that costs them effort.

    According to a well-known marketing rule of thumb, people generally need to hear something about 11 times from strangers before they act on it, but only twice from people they trust.

    That’s where the whole game changes. Your job isn’t to engage 100 employees in sustainability. It’s to engage two people who are close to you and to the people you’re trying to reach. Then those two become your messengers.

    So… who are your two people?

    In line with a popular stakeholder mapping model, your two people don’t necessarily need to be the most powerful people in the room. But they need to be interested in what you are offering, so that they can champion your sustainability ideas either at the board level – if they have that power – or at the “grassroot” level, if they are not high in the ranks.

    Applying the bird rules to people

    Once you’ve picked your one or two people, here’s how the three flocking rules translate into real ESG and sustainability engagement and communication strategies:

    🐦 Avoid collision → Build rapport and lower barriers

    Ask how you can help them reach their goals. Pre-empt their objections before they raise them. This means actually getting to know the person, including what keeps them up at night, what they need and what they want. How can sustainability help them to reach their goals?

    🐦 Match velocity → Meet them where they are

    Don’t drag people into your world with your sustainability jargon and your priorities. Learn theirs. One example that came up in the session: a sustainability leader who, instead of talking about carbon and emissions, learned the language of finance and investment and how carbon savings can save actual money because that’s what his audience cared about. Same message, different wrapping, and it worked.

    🐦 Flock centring → Build your core team and give them agency

    Keep your champions and sponsors close, engaged and, crucially, give them real ownership. People don’t want to be spectators in a cause they believe in; they want to get involved and contribute.

    Over to you

    Here’s your homework (this stuff needs to be practised if you want to become a better leader, so it is worth investing the time to do that!):

    1. Pick one stakeholder group you want to influence (your team, your board, your community, whatever’s relevant to you right now).
    2. Choose two individuals within that group, ideally people who already like you or have something in common with you.
    3. Work through the three steps:
      • Avoid collision:  how will you build rapport and lower their barriers?
      • Match velocity: how will you meet them where they’re at?
      • Flock centring: how will you keep them engaged once they’re on board?
    4. Identify what could get in the way. Because something always does, and naming it now means you’re less likely to be derailed by it later.

    A question for you: who are your two people? Not your whole team or your whole board, just two. Drop a comment: I’d love to know who you’re starting with, and why.

    Finally, don’t aim for perfection; these things take time and refinement. But my suggestion would be to just give it a go, then let me know how it goes: I’m always happy to help.

    Now go fly like a (slightly more strategic) bird. 🐦