Data Storytelling Techniques

Maybe the problem isn’t climate denial. Maybe it’s climate messaging. We’ve been attempting to scare or shame people into caring, and it’s not effective. Is it time to completely rethink how we talk about climate and sustainability? We've spent years trying to influence people through fear, data, and moral urgency. The results? Mixed. If we want genuine buy-in, we need to be honest about what’s isn’t working. Here are seven messaging mistakes we keep repeating. 1. Leading with Guilt and Doom: "We're killing the planet!" doesn't inspire - it overwhelms. Guilt sparks awareness, but rarely leads to action. 2. Talking About “The Planet” Instead of People People don’t wake up thinking about biodiversity - they think about bills, housing, jobs. Make climate personal. What can THEY GAIN out of changing their behaviour? 3. Assuming Rational Facts Will Change Behavior: 1.5°C Warming Is Essential, But Not Sufficient. Facts Inform, but Emotions Drive Action. 4. Using Elite, exclusionary language jargon, such as “net zero” and “green premiums,” alienates the majority. Sustainability can’t sound like it’s just for experts or elites. 5. Neglecting economic and social equity when we assume everyone can afford an EV or solar system, we lose trust. Green should be accessible to everyone - not just the wealthy. 6. Framing Green as Restriction, Not Opportunity: Less driving, flying, consuming... Where’s the upside? A green transition should feel like a win: lower bills, warmer homes, and cleaner air. 7. Treating Climate Like a Separate Issue. Climate isn’t separate from the economy, housing, or healthcare - it is those things. When we silo it, we shrink its relevance. So, how do we change the story? ✅ Speak to lived realities. Discuss how green policies improve everyday life, including jobs, bills, housing, and health. ✅ Shift from sacrifice to solutions. Replace “cut back” with “get more” - resilience, savings, mobility, and wellbeing. ✅ Make it simple. Use plain, human language. Instead of “decarbonize the grid,” say “cleaner, cheaper energy in every home. Help people to measure their carbon footprint.” ✅ Center fairness easily. Ensure that the benefits of sustainability are accessible - especially to those who have been historically excluded. ✅ Embed climate into everything. Don’t treat it like a separate crusade - show how it strengthens the economy, creates jobs, and benefits communities. ✅ Gemify climate action ✅ Give intrinsic value to change of behaviour and reducing carbon footprint. 👉 Time to stop scaring people into action - and start inspiring them with what’s possible. What language has been proven to be effective for climate and sustainability? Let’s share notes. ♻️ Repost this to help spread the word, please! 👉 Follow Gilad Regev for more insights like this.

Why facts alone won’t save the planet When I think about what makes someone care about the natural world, it rarely begins with statistics or graphs. It begins with a moment. For me, it was an encounter I had at age 12 with frogs in an Indigenous community in the Ecuadorian Amazon (https://lnkd.in/g882Ui8X fascination that turned to urgency when I later read about an oil spill near where I had stayed. Since then, I’ve come to believe that connection, not just information, is what stirs people to act. During a recent conversation with Jessica Morgenthal for her Resilience Gone Wild podcast (https://lnkd.in/gpsw-B7i), we spoke about that idea: how empathy for one being can lead to concern for an entire ecosystem. When people talk about “a herd of gazelles,” it’s abstract. But tell the story of one gazelle—its habits, its struggle to survive—and suddenly it matters. We often relate most to individuals, not collectives. The same is true for human stories of conservation. When Mongabay reported on a community in Gabon fighting to protect its forest, it wasn’t primarily the data that moved the environment minister to intervene—it was meeting the people whose lives were entwined with those trees and realizing how their stewardship sustained a healthy and productive system. I’ve found that even the smallest connections can shift perspective. When snorkeling, I sometimes encounter a fish that swims beside me and seems to remember me when I revisit the site the next day. We don’t share language or biology, yet there’s an unmistakable recognition. If we can connect with a fish (https://lnkd.in/gxz9fJtd), surely we can connect with one another. That belief has shaped my journalism. Facts establish credibility, but stories create meaning. In a world where trust in science and media has increasingly faltered among many audiences, storytelling offers a bridge—a way to make people feel before they analyze. The same principle applies beyond conservation. Whether we’re talking about communities, politics, or technology, change begins with empathy. We don’t protect what we don’t love, and we don’t love what we don’t understand. The task, then, is to help people see the world as alive, particular, and personal—and to remember that even one small connection can open the door to care.

I may have a soft spot for communication (it’s what I do!) but I genuinely believe that communication is at the heart of driving meaningful change. And there has never been a more important time than now to use our creative skills to make a difference, regardless of the industry we work in. At the non-profit H&M Foundation, we’re on a mission to support the textile industry halve its greenhouse gas emissions every decade by 2050, while ensuring a just and fair transition for both people and the planet. But making this transformation possible requires every voice and every skill — including the power of creativity and communication.  Communication shapes perception, builds awareness, and inspires action. As communicators and creatives, we can create narratives that balance urgency with hope, showing that positive change isn’t just necessary — it’s possible. The stories we tell can transform passive awareness into active engagement, motivating organizations and individuals to take concrete steps forward and see themselves as part of the solution. However, creating this kind of communication is no easy feat. Climate communication walks a fine line. While we want to inspire action and hope, we must avoid oversimplification. I believe it’s crucial to pair fact-based science and context with creativity and storytelling. Because evidence gives stories substance, but stories give evidence meaning. While it’s clear that meaningful change requires action on many fronts, I think that communication plays a role in raising awareness and driving engagement towards the collective action necessary to address the climate crisis. Of course, communication alone won’t change the world, but I think it can spark the conversations, ideas, and behaviours that lead to lasting impact. So, no matter the industry, I believe this is the time to use our skills to bridge the gap between awareness and action. For anyone in the creative space, I highly recommend A New Era in Climate Communications by New Zero World and the Global Commons Alliance. By bringing together science and storytelling, this report reimagines how we can address the climate crisis. It is a must-read and a call to action to turn our creative energy toward meaningful impact. The challenge is big, but so are our ideas. Let’s get to work! Read the report: https://lnkd.in/dRyvwFRV #ClimateCommunications #ClimateAction #Storytelling #SustainabilityCommunications

I met my inspiration at NY Climate Week and the insights she dropped will shape my work for years. Solitaire Townsend shared something uncomfortable: we've been telling the same "running out of time" story for longer than some activists have been alive. After decades at Futerra studying storytelling, here's the truth → Stories are 22 times more likely to be remembered than facts. Yet we keep managing data instead of managing emotion. Three narrative killers plague climate stories: → Sacrifice – telling people they must give up everything → Agency – making people feel powerless → Fatalism – convincing young people (up to 50%) that we're doomed When she started in the '90s, renewable energy was a joke—"what a few weirdos in California did." Now it's cheaper than fossil fuels. The story changed. The world changed. But we're STILL stuck at the inciting incident without moving forward. That's not how society changes. Society changes through punctuated equilibrium. Everything stays the same, then everything changes at once. We're at that moment. Here's what we miss: people engage with climate differently. After testing across markets from China to the US to Europe, Futerra identified three psychographic groups in your boardrooms and buying committees: GREENS (systems-first) → Push lifecycle TCO, Scope 1-3 cuts, resilience scores. Want credible roadmaps, open data and predictive impact metrics. What stalls them: short-termism and vendor lock-in GOLDS (societal-status focused) → Ask "What are peers doing?" Need recognizable logos, benchmarks, case studies. Move on what will make them look good internally and externally What stalls them: jargon and unclear immediate value. BRICKS (pragmatic operators) → Need <18-month payback, concrete playbooks, role-level wins. Track OPEX cuts and cycle time. What stalls them: Vague benefits and unclear ROI The tragedy is that Greens and Bricks fight each other. Greens push systems thinking; Bricks demand immediate ROI. Both try to convert Golds, who follow momentum. The insight: Stop trying to make every stakeholder Green. Your buying committee has all three. Your roadmap needs to speak to all three. If we change the story, we can change the world. We are homo narrativus : the storytelling ape. It's time we acted like it. -- Looking to tell effective stories for GTM in Climate? Check the pinned comment.

🌱📖 New Publication: When Storytelling Backfires in Sustainability/CSR Communication As debates about #ESG, regulatory #rollback, and growing #greenhushing intensify, companies are rethinking how to communicate their sustainability efforts. Over the last years, some have turned to storytelling to engage audiences emotionally – but is that always the right move? In our new paper (Lukas Krenz, Sabrina Scheidler, Sankar Sen & Univ.-Prof. Dr. Jan Wieseke), we show that storytelling in sustainability/CSR can backfire: 🔄 When used for peripheral activities (like philanthropy), stories often trigger consumer skepticism and perceptions of manipulative intent. 💡 In contrast, storytelling about embedded sustainability (e.g., employee-focused initiatives) is less likely to evoke backlash. 📉 These effects matter – we observe lower loyalty and even decreased purchase behavior in two large-scale field experiments. The findings challenge the assumption that storytelling is a universal tool for sustainability communication. In a world where consumers are increasingly alert to greenwashing and corporate motives, companies need to rethink when and how they narrate their impact. 🎙️ I regularly explore this tension between Numbers and Narratives with Judith Stroehle in our podcast – feel free to listen in. 👉Full paper here: Link in the comments #ESG #Greenhushing #Storytelling #Sustainability #CSR #Marketing #ConsumerBehavior #Research Universität Hamburg Professorship for Sustainable Business - Universität Hamburg

🗺 Calling all mapping enthusiasts - the UK Watershed Pollution Map is LIVE! 🗺 This isn't your average map. It's a treasure trove of data uncovering potential pollution threats to our rivers, lakes, coasts, and more! Think: - River, lake, and groundwater health - Bathing water health - Damaged and protected waters - Chemical & urban pollution - Intensive pig and chicken farming - Historic landfill sites ️ PLUS TONS more! An inspiring group of people behind this map spent years collecting data (think field research, FOIs, official sources) and decided to make it ALL open-source. I'm so impressed by that approach, as knowledge is power, but shared knowledge is a SUPERPOWER! This map is for everyone: journalists, activists, scientists, policymakers - YOU! It can help you: - Understand environmental challenges in our communities. - Spark investigations and hold polluters accountable. - Us the data to take action to further protect our environment.. - ..And if outside the UK, model similar local work after this effort. ** Link below to explore the Watershed Pollution Map, making waves! **   Watershed Investigations is an independent, not-for-profit, investigative journalism effort to shine a light on the water crisis, using in-depth, rigorous, evidence-based stories which hold the powerful to account, uncover abuses, illuminate overlooked stories, and champion solutions. WATERSHED’s investigative journalists are environmental journalist Rachel Salvidge (The Guardian, The Times, BBC and The ENDS Report) and filmmaker and broadcast journalist Leana Hosea, who has spent 18 years working at the BBC. Supporters include Oak Foundation, European Climate Foundation, ASHKEN FAMILY CHARITABLE FOUNDATION INC , Christopher Parker, Ben Goldsmith, WildFish, Wildlife and Countryside Link, The Wildlife Trusts. #environment #pollution #opendata #journalism #water #sustainability #makeadifference #england #opendata

Last week, a brilliant climate tech founder showed me his pitch deck. The technology? Revolutionary. The impact? Massive. The story? Non-existent. 'But look at these numbers,' he insisted, pointing to graphs and data. 'The solution sells itself!' Here's what I told him: - No one has ever fallen in love with a spreadsheet. - No one has ever changed their behavior because of a pie chart. - No one has ever evangelized a product because of its technical specifications. The most powerful climate solutions don't win because they're the most advanced - they win because they tell stories that make people feel something. Tesla didn't sell electric cars by talking about battery chemistry. Beyond Meat didn't transform food by explaining protein extraction. Patagonia didn't change retail by detailing textile engineering. They told stories that made people imagine a different future. A future they wanted to be part of. Your climate solution isn't just fighting carbon emissions or waste or pollution. It's fighting for a story in people's minds. Yes, your solution must fit a need and work well. But in the battle for attention, the best storytellers often win. What story is your climate solution telling? 👇 #ClimateInnovation #Storytelling #CleanTech

Lately I’ve been obsessed with this question: Why do some climate messages move people—and others don’t? In a new episode of Bloomberg Television's new show Quantum Marketing by Raja Rajamannar, Pranav Yadav (CEO of Neuro-Insight) breaks down how the brain actually responds to storytelling—and how that applies to climate advocacy. Around the 17-minute mark, he analyzes a well-produced climate ad and explains, through neuromarketing data, why it doesn’t stick. The key insight? Psychological distance. The ad talks about climate change, but not in a way that connects to people's personal context—what they care about in their day-to-day lives. And when something feels distant—geographically, emotionally, or temporally—the brain tunes it out. It fails to encode in memory, which means it doesn’t influence behavior. What does work? Stories that activate memory encoding by making the stakes immediate and relatable. That connect to identity, not just intellect. That meet people where they are—then move them. This kind of research lights me up. It’s why I believe we’re at an inflection point in climate storytelling. At TIME, we’re working to reframe climate not just as an environmental issue, but as an economic one. A human one. A business one. If you're doing research in this space—neuroscience, behavioral design, storytelling strategy—or want to help us build a better framework for climate narratives, let’s talk. We need to scale these insights and we have the tools to do it. Watch the whole video but especially the last bit after 17 min if you're thinking about how to communicate urgency, value, and impact in this moment. 🎥 https://lnkd.in/et_uK4c6 #climatecommunications #neuromarketing #behaviorchange #storytelling #TIME #climateaction #businesscaseforclimate

Inspiration to Broaden Our Thinking! In our modern professional environments, we often forget that humans are fundamentally storytelling creatures; Homo narrans. We increasingly place our trust in "objective" data and models, overlooking that these tools are themselves created and interpreted by a us as a storytelling species. The report "Listening to Understand" by Thea Snow and Asitha Bandaranayaka (Centre for Public Impact), Rachel Fyfe Dusseldorp Forum), and Lila Wolff Hands Up Mallee) explores this tension between stories and data in government and philanthropy. Their research reveals how stories deepen understanding of policy impacts, influence decision-makers through empathy, center lived experience in policy design, and envision alternative futures. Internal storytelling builds trust within teams and reconnects professionals with their purpose. However, significant barriers prevent effective "storylistening": * The perceived superiority of quantitative data * Lack of narrative skills among professionals * Power imbalances determining which stories are heard * Efficiency imperatives limiting time for storytelling * Unconscious biases and dominant narratives Storytelling belongs in a just city where all narratives have their place. Yet every story requires not only a teller but also a listener—something increasingly scarce in our current era. The art of deep listening is as crucial as the skill of articulation. The authors recommend practical solutions: * Investing in ethnographic skills * Developing decision-makers' storylistening capabilities * Cultivating relationships with storytellers * Creating safe spaces for traditionally marginalized voices * Implementing relational approaches to funding * Bringing together data specialists with frontline workers * Utilizing technologies that combine stories with data This well-documented and accessible report invites readers to reflect and explore further. The balance between narrative and numbers isn't merely aesthetic—it's essential for creating policies and programs that genuinely serve communities. This publication serves as an excellent complement to their earlier work, which I discussed in a previous post: https://lnkd.in/ejJiGBMv #StorylisteningInPolicy #EvidenceBasedDecisionMaking #SystemicChange #PolicyDesign #PhilanthropyInnovation #CommunityVoices #PublicSector #NarrativeData #JustCity Jurjen van der Weg Bauke J.

Imagine standing on a mountaintop in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania, one of Europe’s wildest and most breathtaking regions. The view stretches endlessly—rolling forests, deep valleys, and a sense of timelessness. But what truly makes this place remarkable isn’t just the landscape—it’s the people. Last year I had the privilege of spending time with a community of Romanian shepherds, people who live and breathe this land every single day. Their lives revolve around the rhythm of the mountains, their sheep, and the changing seasons. For generations, they have managed livestock in harmony with nature, preserving biodiversity without fanfare. They don’t call it ‘rewilding’ or ‘conservation’—it’s simply their way of life. Yet, this way of life is deeply fragile. In the entire expanse of the Carpathian Mountains, there is no formal climate research taking place. None. These shepherds, who observe the land so intimately, are our only reliable witnesses to the subtle changes taking place: shorter winters, lower spring water levels, dwindling grass in the valleys. One shepherd shared how he is forced to drive his flock earlier into the mountains, higher into the alpine meadows, despite the lingering wintery conditions there. Their knowledge isn’t written down. It’s not captured in data sets or headlines. It’s stored in the rhythm of their daily lives, passed down through generations. And if we don’t take the time to listen—truly listen—it risks being lost forever. These lived experiences provide invaluable insights into the impacts of climate change, the kind of insights that data alone can’t reveal. They remind us of what’s at stake, not just for these communities, but for all of us. The question is: are we listening? Photos by Jasper Doest #onassignment for National Geographic in #Romania #rewilding #rewild #CarpathianMountains #ClimateChange #Shepherds #TraditionalKnowledge #Biodiversity #Sustainability #Storytelling #ConservationMatters