Sustainability and Communication

Abstract

In response to growing global environmental problems and threats associated with global warming, organizations are recognizing that business-as-usual is no longer sufficient and that it is time to go to scale in responding to impending challenges. Effective communication is absolutely essential. Strategic communication is needed to alert, persuade, and help people enact sustainability initiatives within and between organizations. Strategic communication also orients our consciousness by inviting us to take a particular perspective, by evoking certain values and not others, and by creating referents for our attention and understanding. Sometimes effective communication is characterized by strategic ambiguity. Organizations face multiple challenges in terms of their sustainability-related communication. Some are silenced because of their fear of speaking out. For others, the messages they create are not processed because message recipients are unmotivated. Knowledge regarding the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion and the use of repetition are important tools when designing strategic communication. Communicators need to think critically about where their audience is in their understanding of sustainability and how to present information in an accessible way. Attention to message design and message framing can help. Interview data drawn from Aspen Skiing Company; Heifer International®; the City and County of Denver, CO; the Arbor Day Foundation; and ClearSky Climate Solutions illustrates the concepts being discussed.