Sustainability Storytelling: What Works and Why

Speakers

• Edward Humes, Author, Force of Nature: The Unlikely Story of Wal-Mart's Green Revolution
• Melanie Janin, Communications Director, BSR (Moderator)

Highlights

• Transparent, genuine, and personal stories provide a human context for understanding content. Build stories that are concrete, specific, and relatable.

• Omitting information—favorable and particularly unfavorable—increases interest from journalists because it indicates secrecy and potential wrongdoing.

• Communicating ideas and stories is about how you frame the issue. Selling a book about artists-in-residence at a local dump, as opposed to writing about just the dump, is more compelling and integrates the human story.

Memorable Quotes

“The stories we care about are about people we care about.” —Edward Humes, Force of Nature: The Unlikely Story of Wal-Mart’s Green Revolution

“There is no magic to [finding inspiration]. If you feel passionate about a particular story, and if you find it fascinating, there is usually a pretty good reason for that … you’re onto it.” —Edward Humes, Force of Nature: The Unlikely Story of Wal-Mart’s Green Revolution

“The more secretive you are, the more eyebrows you raise. … Aren’t we at that phase where people should come out and share?” —Melanie Janin, BSR

Overview

Turning nonfiction into a transfixing page-turning novel that also happens to be true is Humes’s objective when writing books like Force of Nature: The Unlikely Story of Wal-Mart’s Green Revolution. Humes’s interest in the story sprouted from the concept that if a business like Wal-Mart could embrace sustainability, not only could it happen everywhere, but it will happen everywhere.

After digging into the human stories behind the company’s journey, Humes contributed Wal-Mart’s shift to both the need to change due to increasing external pressures, as well as the unusual dynamics of “tree hugger” Jib Ellison and former CEO Lee Scott, who started the shift. As the story goes, during an unconventional job interview at Wal-Mart, Ellison surprised Scott when he stated that environmentally friendly business operations were not a source of added cost and risk, but the path to a more lucrative future. Stories like this one—that integrate the human story into a larger picture—are what can inspire and connect people to the narrative.

Janin invited Humes to share tips on effective storytelling to help businesses and journalists alike create compelling nonfiction writing in the sustainability field. The recurring theme of contextualizing information for the average person through stories about human experiences resonated with the filled room. Using common language and focusing the message on something concrete and relatable holds a reader’s attention.

For example, when Wal-Mart started its sustainability journey, the retailer sent an employee to China, where he found two production lines of seemingly identical laptops. When asked about the difference between the two, the factory worker explained that the TVs on the left were for the United States, and the ones on the right were TVs for the rest of the world, which comply with higher standards based on EU law. The employee learned that not only were the “other” TVs cheaper, but they were also safer. He immediately changed Wal-Mart orders to the “other” TVs, resulting in what Humes calls “a win in every sense of the word.”

Humes and Janin agreed that when communicating “messy” messages, it is best to be clear and honest; if you do not provide the context, someone else will. BP’s disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico surprised individuals who were familiar with the merits and high reviews of the oil company’s CSR reporting, which in turn led to increased skepticism about BP’s dedication to CSR.

Including feedback, especially negative feedback, from external stakeholders (such as critical NGOs) can help companies avoid greenwashing through omission. However, providing too much technical or numerical information can hinder a reader’s understanding. Humes referred to his wife’s response, “MEGO”—an acronym for “my eyes glaze over”—when describing readers’ responses to big numbers that are difficult to comprehend. When you get a number that is powerful, though, it can change the whole story.

During the Q&A segment, attendees were interested in how to get their messages out, ranging from social media strategies to transforming abstract concepts into tangible stories. Humes and Janin both agreed that social media allows anyone to be part of the conversation, an advantage that Janin believes is particularly important because you understand what resonates with people and are able to tailor the story to speak to them in their own voice. Being genuine with intentions, honest about progress, and realistic about the reach and appropriate scope of your company’s work in external communications are ways that company communicators can integrate storytelling while not losing the nonfiction portion of their company’s journey. Humes referred to Aristotle’s theory that “the universal is found in particular things” as a solid basis for storytelling.

The session ended with a question posed to the audience about what the world will look like in terms of quality of life, cost, and other factors for today’s kids when they reach adulthood. Humes stated that given today’s circumstances, these are open questions; but if we were living sustainable lives, they would be easier to answer.