What Sustainability Really Needs
Hint: it’s not what you think
Sustainability needs a lot of things: a champion, a sexy tagline, a consistent definition, meaningful regulatory support, and more.
But what sustainability really needs is an audience.
Sustainability practitioners are often just talking to themselves, and their knowledge never gets to the people who could actually use it; or it is so technical that nobody can understand, much less implement it.
Sustainability conferences and seminars are full of the same experts talking to one another and raising a call to action that the audience — other sustainability practitioners — already believes in.
As a sustainability practitioner, I can call myself out on this one.
We know what needs to get done and how to do it, but we are just talking to ourselves.
This dovetails with the sustainability community’s lack of diversity, but that topic deserves its own post.
So, what can practitioners do to help sustainability find its audience?
Below are three strategies:
- First, make sustainability interesting, engaging and accessible. Encourage others to do something, one small thing — anything, really. Sustainability can be overwhelming and it is our job to break it down into manageable concepts and actionable steps.
- Second, make specialized knowledge understandable. Create infographics or other visuals to help a non-technical audience grasp new concepts.
- Third, find a way to teach. There are many opportunities to (virtually) teach: reach out to a local community college, high school, community center or business organization and volunteer an hour or two of your time — challenge yourself to reach a different audience, even if you start with your own circle of friends and family.
In my experience, engaging new audiences deepens my understanding of the material (and highlights potential knowledge gaps), so I can become a stronger practitioner and better advocate.
Sustainability will find its audience when we challenge ourselves to engage and empower others.
