Sustainability Communications Resources

Below are the links to speaker presentations and the videos shown at this events, plus a few extra videos that may interest you.

Our 10 Sustainability Communications Takeaways, also below, is a synthesis of the presentations, panel discussions and Q&A at the events framed in terms of promoting the development of a more sustainable economy with a robust ‘green marketplace’. We hope you find this useful when communicating sustainability in your workplace.

We are also making a short video of this event and will upload the link in the coming weeks.

Green Capital welcomes your feedback and further contributions.

Keynote Speaker Presentations and Video Clips

Watch all videos on this MMGM playlist

Andrew McNally, Commercial Director, NewsLab – presenter in Sydney & Melbourne

• download presentation part 1 and part 2*
• Häagen-Dazs
• Greenworks
• Reverse Graffiti
• Behaviour change

Tony Douglas, Director, Essential Media Communications – presenter in Sydney & Melbourne

• download presentation here
• A narrative: CFMEU

Skye Laris, Communications and Campaigns Director – presenter in Sydney

• download presentation here
• What works: Clean Energy Future
• Common Mistakes: Think Climate
• Ministers: Gillard Explains Carbon Price

Blair Palese, CEO, 350.org Australia – download here – presenter in Melbourne

• download presentation here
• What’s worked: Clean Energy Future (also in Skye’s links)
• What’s worked: Black Balloons
• Tea Party Tactics: Anti-carbon tax ad

Green Capital’s 10 Sustainability Communications Takeaways

1. Build towards an enduring narrative.
   Achieving sustainability, and especially the transition to a sustainable economy, needs a metanarrative that brings socio-economic and environmental wellbeing together as one story that engages people as a ‘universal truth’. This is the holy grail of communications, reflecting cultural acceptance, and most likely will only emerge as the product of a series of more specific narrative building blocks. Tony Douglas, from Essential Media Communications, suggested the right narrative for the current era is: A strong economy is dependent on a healthy environment.
   
   
2. The ‘story-telling’ is everything.
   Having the right ‘story’ or narrative is vital, but how it is told trumps all. To paraphrase Andrew McNally, of NewsNet: ‘You have to be there telling a story … it’s no good just putting up an ad’. Film screenwriter John Collee, of 350Australia, used the analogy of a screenplay in three parts – the problem, the complications and the resolution. There is much discussion of different media channels, for example traditional PR-driven media coverage and advertising versus new social media, but in the end there are many channels in play to tell a story and reach an audience. Whatever ones are used, it’s the power and integrity of the storyline that will decide if people tune in and respond appropriately i.e. act in the way the communication is intended to achieve, whether that is buy, vote, or change behaviour.
   
   
3. Authenticity is a killer app.
   There actually isn’t an easy plug-in app for building a story that is authentic for your organisation to tell. And while the ingredients are simple to list, they can be hard to put into effect. Ideally you need a genuine public interest issue that is relevant to your organisation, brand, program or product and to which you can respond in a meaningful way. An example cited at MMGM was a hugely successful campaign in the US by natural ingredients ice cream maker Haagen Dazs to help save the world’s honeybees (http://www.helpthehoneybees.com/). NewsNet’s Andrew McNally says you need ‘values’ at the core, and warned: ‘You will be found out if you are telling half truths or lies.’
   
   
4. New social media is a game-changer.
   Get Up’s communications director Skye Laris is glad to see ‘the brochure has almost died’ as the Internet provides such an effective alternative platform to deliver information for influencing from the bottom up (‘top down never works for behaviour change’). Nadya Krienke-Becker, of The Shaper Group, says social media and social networks have given us a ‘platform for dialogue’ that transcends traditional media. To paraphrase her, ‘we are all food editors and travel writers now’. NewsNet’s Andrew McNally says that in this new operating environment, every organisation is a media business, with its own publishing assets to 'get the story out'; and 'share-ability' is vital, with marketers seeking to get exposure across millions of 'page impressions' using diverse media platforms.
   
   
5. Don’t, however, write off traditional media just yet.
   High repetition delivery of marketing messages via traditional television, media and print advertising can still work very well if you get the story and the timing right. These tactics, however, are more suited to short-term objectives like winning an election or stopping a particular policy change (think the mining industry assault on the original super profits tax) than long-term behaviour change.
   
   
6. People are ‘always on’ now.
   There is no downtime for media and marketing now, with the 24-hour news cycle, the Internet, pervasive social networks and screen-based mobile devices that travel with people wherever they go, whatever time of the day.
   
   
7. Choose your battlegrounds & know that good outcomes have to be ‘earned’.
   Winning in the public arena is tough territory, especially when issues like putting a price on carbon pollution are deeply polarised at a political and public level. Many businesses have chosen to shy away from positioning themselves on public policy issues in favour of looking inwards to engage their own people and transform their own business models. They nonetheless are building their stories and, potentially, a platform to go public when the time is more suitable, because you can’t buy credibility on sustainability overnight nor conjure up values without effort. NewsNet’s Andrew McNally says: ‘It is no longer about the paid media. It's about the earned media.’
   
   
8. Shape your message to the audience, not vice versa.
   There’s a warning for any organisation wanting to tell its ‘story’ and promote its ‘product’ - whether that’s a consumable, a service, a policy, a campaign, or an idea.  Don’t get trapped into messaging that tells the audience what you want to hear (i.e. we have to ‘educate the population’ to think like us). Effective marketing communications for sustainability needs to lay the breadcrumbs for the audience to discover and follow to where you want them to end up. Matt Perry, of Republic of Everyone, noted: ‘The key problem with government advertising is that there is so much focus on the politics … they forget human beings are quite simple creatures.’ The result is that by trying to be politically clever, and cover all bases, such ads can miss the mark in terms of informing or persuading the population. That said, Tony Wright of December Media, makers of the ABC-TV Carbon Cops series, warned at MMGM that: ‘Science is such a tricky area to communicate.’ This adds to the communication challenge, when rigorous fact checking is demanded, and scientific complexity defies being dumbed down. The answer is to treat both the content and the audience with respect.
   
   
9. We’re actually good at achieving behaviour change.
   Most people can cite examples of behaviour change challenges that have been overcome by effective public policy strategies that include media and marketing communications. Examples include using sun protection, responding to HIV-Aids, wearing seat belts, stopping smoking and littering. The underlying message, however, is that successful campaigns are ‘deep’ and extend far beyond the communications – which is merely the shop front. At MMGM, Bernard Carlon from the NSW Government’s Office of Environment and Heritage used the example of its campaign to reduce littering with cigarette butts. The visible part of the campaign was the memorable ‘Don’t be a tosser’ copy line, yet the unseen work included deep engagement of local councils and training for 800+ enforcement officers. On climate change, Carlon conceded: ‘We just haven’t cracked it on this one yet.’ PR specialist Blair Palese, of 350Australia, is ultimately optimistic: ‘We are good communicators in Australia, and we have a good story to tell.’
   
   
10. All big change takes time and mistakes can be made.
    There’s no sign of a quick fix on sustainability and climate change – despite the urgency,. Nor have we yet achieved the necessary sense of  cut through - that was created, for example, by the memorable initial HIV-Aids ‘Grim Reaper’ TV ads. Matt Perry of Republic of Everyone says we are still looking for a ‘seminal moment’ that will crystallise action on climate change. EMC’s Tony Douglas still holds out hope for government communications recovering from early inadequacies, finally winning over the public to climate action including a price on carbon: ‘It’s a communications failure that still has the chance to be righted.’
    
    Which brings us back to having a compelling, authentic story to tell and embedding the cultural belief and associated actions that recognise the environment is the economy.

Event series speakers, panellists and chairs

Keynote speakers

• Tony Douglas, Essential Media Communications
• Skye Laris, Communications and Campaigns Director, GetUp! (Sydney)
• Blair Palese, CEO, 350.org Australia & Communications (Melbourne)
• Andrew McNally, Commercial Director, NewsNet

Panel members

• Matt Perry, Republic of Everyone (Sydney and Melbourne)
• Bernard Carlon, NSW Office of Environment and Heritage (Sydney)
• John Collee, 350.org Australia (Sydney)
• Nadya Krienke-Becker, Shaper Group
(Melbourne)
• Tony Wright, December Media (Melbourne)

Chairs

• Simon Marnie, Presenter, ABC 702 (Sydney)
• Tanya Ha, Environmentalist and Author (Melbourne)

10 Takeaways prepared by Murray Hogarth, Green Capital Senior Adviser

Green Capital

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