Puzzle: If the principles of sustainable development are so great for business and community, why aren’t sustainable organizations the norm?
Offered as possible reason is the seeming inability of sustainability advocates to communicate in emotionally compelling ways that are relevant to leaders at every level of business and community. When concepts are opaque, wonky or ungrounded, it’s hard to get much momentum for action.
Min Farm participant. foto by Tina Stafrén
Business case
After years of showing people practical examples of ways sustainable practices build healthier organizations, I’ve come to think that when people ask ‘What’s The Business Case for sustainability?”, it’s just another way of saying “You’re full of crap”. Simply showing statistics behind successful organizations isn’t meaningful. People need to be moved–no, inspired– to change behavior or to do the heavy lifting required to change policies and politics to pursue any sort of substantial sustainable development.
When Petter Hanberger explained the MinFarm project, I was transfixed. Here was an example of a complex initiative (many stakeholders, constrained budgets and a need to raise awareness while managing operations) made brilliantly simple and interesting through cool design.
Connecting Communities
It’s about how things are presented as much as what is being presented. While it’s true that experienced, successful PR people have long known the importance of design in creative communication, this was perhaps the first time I’d seen people go beyond the talk and actually apply thoughtful communication to inspire action.
Advocates for sustainable development can learn much from the clever team of of designers behind MinFarm. To inspire action and positive change, galvanize participants by appealing to them as people. Make it cool. Make it easy. Make it affordable. Make it about connecting communities.
In English:
A presentation Petter did for Green Meeting Industry Council, Sweden (In Swedish)
fighting good fights 