Currently reading and thinking about Sustainability Communication

Yesterday, I talked to someone about Sustainability Communication and what we should be teaching our students, and I was honestly expecting something like the Karpman Drama Triangle (see featured image) or something of that sort. Plus of course more sophisticated models. But turns out that Sustainability Communication is a much big field than I realized! So I read the textbook that I was recommended as an introduction, and here are my 2 cents after half a day of reading…

I am reading Michelsen & Godemann (Eds.) Sustainability Communication: Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Theoretical Foundations (2011).

Part I: Mapping Sustainability Communication

The first part of the book is about “Mapping Sustainability Communication”, i.e. defining the field with a historical overview, a definition of sustainability, Sustainability Communication in relation to environmental-, climate- and risk communication, and lastly describing what it means to be a transdisciplinary field.

Godemann and Michelsen start out with a historical overview over sustainable development efforts. I wrote a short summary of the last 50 years of education for sustainable development recently so I won’t repeat here. They point out that during this period, there were three main trends happening in parallel and influencing each other: the economy turned global, with it also the threats to the environment, and then the rapid developments in information technologies brought (many parts of) the world much closer together. These three developments together pose a lot of challenges to humankind, which can only be met if we take on responsibilities and reshape how we live with each other and in the world. The underlying process of communication that is needed in order to do that is — I learned — called Sustainability Communication, and “the task of sustainability communication is to critically evaluate and introduce an understanding of the human-environment relationship into social discourse.”

Mass media are both needed in sustainability communication, but they also have a strong influence on how it plays out. It needs reflexivity in how it addresses the situation, it needs to establish sustainability as intrinsically valuable and to create acceptance (while different definitions are possibly clashing with each other). it needs to work against the tendency to normalisation and medialisation. With this in mind, sustainability communication needs to consider, for example, the role of media and social media, that one-way communication rarely works because what is sent is not what is received, that risk perception is culturally influenced, how to “market” necessary lifestyle changes, etc.. So Sustainability Communication considers social marketing, word-of-mouth communication, empowerment strategies, but also looking at Education for Sustainable Development in informal and formal settings. Actors can be politics, law, science, …, and topics are all the sustainability topics like climate change, biodiversity loss, etc.. Sustainability Communication is seen as a “soft” environmental policy instrument.

In their chapter, Ott, Muraca, and Baatz call for a “more precise definition of the concept of sustainable development […], and one that offers a flexible and non-arbitrary orientation for action”. They describe the role of philosophy in Sustainability Comunication, where they can be mediator, gate-keeper, or participant in the discourse. As participant, philosophers can work to create “a comprehensive normative theory that can offer a well-founded orientation to societal and political decision-making processes”. They rise the very important question what we owe to future generations, and I think this is central to be discussed and renegotiated, not just within philosophy, but with everybody. Again, the process is the point.

In the next chapter, Adomßent and Godemann put Sustainability Communication in the context of Environmental, Risk, and Science communication, which are all integrated into Sustainability Communication. This includes the old news that one-way communication is not a good way of communication since knowing doesn’t necessarily influence actions.

And then in the last chapter of Part I, Godemann discusses “Sustainable Communication as an Inter- and Transdisciplinary Discipline”. Sustainability Communication is not just between science and public, but also between disciplines or people from different disciplines, with the goal of leading to integrated knowledge. There are factors that influence how well teams work, e.g. team size, experience with collaboration, status/power conflicts, familiarity of team members, leadership. Teams also need to create a shared reality and find common ground, … Godemann raises many of such points and offers suggestions for how take a transdisciplinary approach.

Part II Framework of Sustainability Communication

Part II relates Sustainability Communication to different disciplines. Sociological perspectives show how different discourses (e.g. the three pillar model, technological innovation, and others). Psychology comes in regarding direct vs indirect experiences, communication, etc.. Media theory I found very interesting as they state that “media do not – as was once the assumption – depict reality. Instead they create reality.” (de Witt). But here I would really like something that is newer than 2011, which feels like a very long time ago both in how society worked, what we talked about, and how we used social media… The communication theory chapter by Ziemann is also really interesting, because they point out that it is not possible to first discuss sustainability, then plan and implement it, and finally communicate it. The process is the point… As they point out, “communication changes communication“. The next chapter then is on Education for Sustainable Development, and the last one introduces Systems Theory and Constructivism.

Part III Practice of Sustainability Communication

Part III looks at different practices of Sustainability Communication.

First, Newig distinguishes between communication about climate change (which is a discussion) vs communication of it (which is about sending a message one-way to a receiver, usually experts educating lay people), and calls for a participatory approach. Then there are chapters on biodiversity and consumption, and then one on corporate reporting. The latter is probably what I mostly found when searching the web for Sustainability Communication: How and why enterprises talk about what they are doing and their impact relative to some reporting framework. Interestingly, the word “greenwashing” is not mentioned once in the whole book!

Then, there is a chapter on “computer support for cooperative Sustainability Communication”, and here it really felt like we had landed back in the stone ages, as emails and instant messanges were highlighted, and the internet discussed as something that needs explanation in terms of how people “socialize” online. I really need to find newer literature on this!

And then the last chapter is on “Participation: Empowerment for Sustainable Development”. This is where I would see most of my work on co-creation etc, and they mention many methods like roundtables, future workshops, etc..

What I am wondering is how one would work with this book in teaching, and/or which of the topics we need to take with us. I still think that there needs to be a general part about “knowing better does not mean doing better”, “communication is not a one-way street” part, and one about different models like the Drama Triangle or maybe Transactional Analysis (how if we push people in a kid role, they will respond like a kid and either obey the parent or rebell, likewise if we move ourselves into a helpless child role, other people are likely to react as either caring or disciplining parent, so that we always should try to talk to other peoples as grown-ups to grown-ups, even if they aren’t behaving that way). But then we also need to talk about sustainability as emergent, “the process is the point“, and how communication creates reality. And about stakeholders: Maybe we don’t need to talk with everybody about everything all the time, but in many discussions we definitely need more voices than are currently included, both for the discussion itself and for the reality it creates when everybody talks about it back home, with their friends, in their network.

So while I don’t think this book works as a text book for my purposes, it was definitely helpful for me to get a rough overview over the field. Now what do we do with that?

Michelsen, G., & Godemann, J. (Eds.). (2011). Sustainability Communication: Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Theoretical Foundations. Springer.