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How strong storytelling can help prioritize the sustainability agenda
In this episode of the Sustainability Matters podcast, host Bruno Sarda looks at changing the way we deliver the climate crisis message to achieve greater and deeper engagement.
The case for climate action is often presented in terms of facts and data: detailing scientific evidence and financial risk. But is it time to explore different ways to communicate the message; to try an approach that focuses more on human stories and emotions?
In this episode of the Sustainability Matters podcast, Bruno Sarda is joined by two colleagues from EY Climate Change and Sustainability Services (CCaSS): Managing Director Karima Zedan at Ernst & Young LLP and the Gareth Jenkins, EY Global CCaSS Head of Creative at Ernst & Young LLP, to discuss ways to reframe the sustainability narrative.
Behavior change is not happening fast enough to meet climate change realities. The guests suggest that engaging the hearts as well as the minds of businesses, and bringing to life the impact on people, culture and society, is a more compelling narrative. Gareth points out that people, whether at home or the boardroom, respond to stories instinctively, and can be challenged and inspired by them.
The guests discuss the importance of engaging with different audiences, from the C-suite to investors and employees. Karima emphasizes how sustainability initiatives may have a positive impact not only on the company and the brand but also on the employees and wider community.
Gareth then gives some fascinating insight into the innovative EY Four Futures experience that was first presented at COP28 — an immersive installation that explores different outcomes from four potential future scenarios. Through the power of hearing each of the four stories, Four Futures can inspire joint action today.
Key takeaways:
Storytelling and highlighting the human impact of climate change can be highly effective in bringing the message to life.
Businesses, governments and mass media should try to explore new and innovative ways of storytelling that utilize artificial intelligence (AI) and immersive experiences.
Positive reaction to these experiences can plant seeds that reach a wider audience.
You can also listen to this podcast on Apple, Spotify
For your convenience, full text transcript of this podcast is also available.
Teaser
How can we take a wealth of information that stems from regulations, compliance-driven activities, charts and systems within companies or governments, and turn it into something that will lead to behavioral change?
Bruno Sarda
Hello. And welcome to the EY Sustainability Matters Podcast, our regular look at ESG [Environment, Social and Governance] and sustainability topics and how they impact businesses around the globe. I'm Bruno Sarda, Climate Change and Sustainability Partner at Ernst & Young LLP, and your host for this series. In today’s episode, we'll be exploring sustainability discourse and the power and importance of narrative, and story of its evolution. Traditionally, we've seen how the discussion around sustainability, and I'd say, especially climate change, but also biodiversity or human rights, has largely been centered on facts and data, focusing on scientific evidence and financial risk or regulatory requirements and the like. And it was done, you know, for good reasons, maybe to defend its importance, often because it might have been challenged, but also to spark action. However, action has not followed at the speed and skill needed. And the behavior change we need to effect this change and to meet the reality of things, like climate change, and achieve the goals we have set, has not happened. So, this led us to explore if a different approach is needed. One that leans more on storytelling to better connect the dots in boardrooms, break rooms, newsrooms and living rooms. Storytelling in the business context is not merely about telling stories. It's about building a narrative from the facts, but also from the cultural and societal context to catalyze action through a change in behavior, to leverage our beliefs, our perceptions, and what we consider important, collectively. So, if facts and data alone could solve the issue, we probably would have fixed all these problems long ago. So, what we really need is to create a more compelling story for the future — one that we want to create and that everybody can and wants to be part of. So, joining me, to examine the vital role of storytelling plays in the realm of sustainability, are my colleagues in EY Climate Change and Sustainability Services (CCaSS) — Karima Zedan, Managing Director at Ernst & Young LLP, and Gareth Jenkins, Global Head of Creative at Ernst & Young LLP. Thank you both for joining us today.
Gareth Jenkins
Great to be here, Bruno.
Karima Zedan
Thank you so much, Bruno. And Gareth, great to be with both of you.
Sarda
So great. Well, let's get going. Gareth, so you're Head of Creative for our Climate Change and Sustainability Services, made up of nearly 4,000 sustainability professionals around the world. Why do you think it's so important to have a focus on creative thinking and expression in our practice?
Jenkins
Bruno, great question. And thanks again for having me on today. I think that you touched on it a moment ago when you spoke a bit about the idea that rational thinking hasn't been enough to get us over the line in pushing the sort of sustainable transformation that we so desperately need. As sustainability professionals, we tend to overemphasize on the rational. And there's a really good reason for that. You know, we come often from engineering backgrounds. We're scientists. We're very precise. There's also a political reason for that. In that, we've seen, over the decades, a concerted effort to discredit the sustainability movement by the merchants of delay and doubt. And as a result, as professionals, we tend to overemphasize getting our facts straight. We don't want to make a mistake, because someone might pick up on it and then take it the wrong way. And before we know it, we've set the whole movement back. So, there are very good reasons why we emphasize the rational. The problem is that people make decisions based on emotional factors and, most importantly, based on stories — people looking for narratives that they can follow, that they can believe in. So, my role, as Head of Creative, is to take the amazing rational work that we do within CCaSS, the great work that we're doing with our clients, and then add a creative, emotional lens to that that allows our people to take that belief further and encourage our clients to go further and faster in their sustainable transformation.
Sarda
Great. Well, thanks. And I think we'll hear about a great example of how you leveraged creative ideation for something very tangible in a minute. Karima, so, you know, you joined EY to help scale our capabilities around topics, like human rights and social impact and equity, and have made storytelling a central pillar of this work. Can you tell us more?
Zedan
Absolutely. And great to be with the both of you today. And I think I'd like to just step back for a moment around why I'm so passionate about communications. It actually was my college major, many, many years ago, so I feel like I'm a little bit — I've come full circle here, in terms of placing it really at the center of social impact. I feel as if we have some sort of collective amnesia in corporate America and in our work lives. Because when we take a step back and we think about what really motivates us and moves us and leads to behavioral change — and there's so much research in the social science and psychological sector to back this up — it is not just rational, as Gareth said, facts and figures. It's stories. It is, for example, if we are learning to change our habits, there's a book called Atomic Habits by James Clear. It's been on every best-selling list since its publication. Why is it so popular? What's his central thesis? It's that as we develop new habits, in order to really integrate them into who we are, we have to tell ourselves a different story about why we're doing this. It's almost like we are going to evolve into a different identity. We are surrounded by stories everywhere we look — in every industry. We love entertainment.
We love hearing stories. We speak in stories when we speak to our friends and family. And there's seems to be some, kind of, when I say collective amnesia. When we go into the workplace, it's as if we have this false dichotomy. That all of a sudden, the place where we spend a third of our lives, we are not going to respond to stories. When, in fact, that's what we respond to in the most substantive, meaningful ways. And a meaningful communication strategy doesn't just convey information. There is a difference between information and communication. Information: facts and figures, and corporate press releases. What percent of that information is retained by its audience? I would probably argue, very little. Communication is ensuring that your audience can actually hear what it is you're saying. And it leads to some kind of behavioral change or change in our thinking. And that's what I love about communications: It's the power to move people and make them feel something. Again, this false dichotomy as if feelings and emotions don't drive us at work. And I'm always reminded of the beautiful quote by Maya Angelou here, a little bit paraphrased: “People will not remember what you did or what you said.
They will remember how you made them feel.” And, I think, that is our challenge here when it comes to telling the story of sustainability in climate. How can we take a wealth of information that stems from regulations, compliance-driven activities, charts and systems within companies or governments, and turn it into something that will lead to behavioral change. And that is what I see is at the center of my remit here. In terms of helping our clients, whether it's government, a private sector or the social sector, scale impact. And one of the key ways to scale impact is to ignite, really, behavioral change and a change in our thinking. And that will be accomplished through storytelling, not through just an annual ESG report that contains fantastic information. But then, perhaps, it stops there. What do we do with that information? Where do we take it?
Sarda
Great. Well, thank you both. And again, continuing on this thread, Karima. As you said, we are a business. We support, you know, many organizations, especially businesses in their own sustainability programs and pursuits. And our own legacy, of course, as a financial accounting and auditing firm, means we are, in fact, very comfortable in the world of data, which is key for regulatory compliance and reporting or building business cases. But as we've covered already, data alone isn't going to be enough. So, when you talk to clients and organizations, how have you seen, actually, the narrative of sustainability evolve? And are you starting to see compelling storytelling becoming an essential component of it?
Zedan
What we're starting to see is a real hunger to tell more stories of impact. I think there is a recognition now, with the absolute majority of our clients, that merely publishing what they have to publish with data, with some context, it is not just facts and figures, there are words attached to reports and decks that are prepared for a number of different audiences. However, what we're starting to hear is, how do I know, or how do we know that what we're doing in the world of social impact, for example, with our charitable giving, with our workforce, how do we know it's working? How do we know people are listening? How do we know it's leading to some kind of social change? Is it aligned with what we're hearing and seeing in the market? And there's a real hunger to do more. And that recognition — that's the first step, really — is to understand that, okay, we have a set of data. We have a number of different audiences that we're trying to engage with. How do we go about doing it? If we're going to talk to our employees, we're going to speak to our employees and tell different kinds of stories, than we would, say, the investor community, than we would our customers or consumers. And that desire is real. EY clients want to scale their impact. They want to know how they're impacting people. So, there's an adjacent conversation, but related around measurement. That is a very popular topic right now that we're seeing in the market. How do we measure what we're doing, which is half the conversation? Once you have measured what you're doing, again, that produces data, facts and figures, how do you relate it back to your strategic framework? To your core operating business? How does that then get translated back to your workforce? And that is the conversation that we are continuing to have across both the public and private sector.
Jenkins
Karima, I love that angle, you know, using storytelling to better talk about the work that EY clients have been doing. What about, and this is one of the things that I've been focusing a lot on, telling an inspiring story about what they could be doing? So, using storytelling as a way of articulating a North Star and then getting people to rally around it. There's this quote, and I'm going to completely misquote it now, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry who wrote Le Petit Prince, which you may or may not know. Bruno, I see you nodding. As a good Frenchman, you probably know that story really well. Anyway, the quote goes, "If you want people to build a great ship, don't give them the dimensions and specs of how a boat should be built. Instead, fill them with dreams of the wide-open sea.” And, I think one of our roles in sustainability is to inspire people. Because what we're trying to do here is not easy. And it's also not quite clear how we're going to get there. We don't really have the drawings of what this ship is going to look like. But we do know what the end point could be like. It's hard, but we have to find ways of encouraging people to get there. So, I think, this wonderful role in storytelling of not just talking about what we're doing, that's us, being EY, but also our clients. But also getting people to go through what is likely to be a difficult process in sustainable transformation. I don't know, have you come across that sort of demand from your clients?
Zedan
Definitely. And the challenge, again, I'll just back up and think about how hard is it for us, as individuals, to enact change in our own lives? It's quite, [LAUGHS], it's quite challenging. [LAUGHS] That's the entire industry of productivity and changing habits. There are a number of blog posts we could refer to [LAUGHS] around this subject.
Zedan
So, when we translate that over to system-wide change, the challenge has just [TUTS] been amplified. So, how do we begin to move systems? It starts with individuals. It does start with people. And it starts, to your point, in the very same way of inspiring them to believe that there are different possibilities — engaging their imaginations and sparking their creativity. So that they can then begin to build a different kind of future. And I think there's also this baseline belief that it's also extremely hard to change, which is that sustainability versus your business is a zero-sum game. And how do we first change that fundamental belief to encourage our clients, to encourage the system to believe that it's not zero sum? There's room for both. In fact, when you adopt sustainability into your business, your business will benefit and your communities will benefit. Your company and your brand — all of these things will benefit. That is a hard belief to change, because it really is a defining principal for much of the way we function in society. So, the change is enormous.
Sarda
One of the things that, I think, has been helping drive a little bit of that pull you were describing, Gareth, is, over maybe the last decade or so, we've seen many more companies, leading companies, really trying to reconnect with what they call maybe the power of purpose and culture, is that — for all of the empirical things and technical things that many companies do — really try and connect to a fabric of why are we here? Why is that good? Why is the world better off because we're in it? And use that not only in the way they present their products. You see many products, really describing what they sell. Not just in terms of what it is, you know, grams of sugar or pounds of plastic. [LAUGHS] But rather what is it enable in your life, similar, I think, to the quote you talked about how to build a ship. And so, I think that's given us a bit of a platform also to try to connect that work of sustainability to the values, purpose and culture of an organization in ways that maybe it hasn't yet as much as it could.
Jenkins
Yeah, I agree. I think marketers have been quite sophisticated at this in many ways. It's kind of the backbone of marketing is to connect your individual need with a product or service that's on offer. So, it makes sense.
Zedan
Gareth, you've just come back recently from COP28, where you were responsible for bringing to life a very interesting, engaging and immersive experience about different possibilities. And I'm hoping you can elaborate on that now in this podcast. And bring us into those Four Futures.
Jenkins
Yeah, of course, Karima. So, yeah, it's been an incredible — we've been working on this Four Futures for about a year now — though with real intensity over the last six months. And we were able to debut at COP28, which was November and December of 2023, to great success. Let me tell you a little bit about it. So, there is a futurist, a guy called Jim Dator, who's based out of the University of Hawaii. He's a professor there. And he's come up with this really interesting, simple framework of looking into the future. Essentially, the way that it works is, do we stick with our current system? And then, if we do, what's the best-case scenario that we can hope for? We call that our BAU [Business As Usual] scenario. And what's the worst-case scenario that we can hope for? And we call that the Collapse scenario. Or do we shift to a radical new system? And if we do so, what's the worst-case scenario? And we call that a Constrain scenario. And the best case, which is the Transform scenario. Now, anyone who works in sustainability will know that BAU isn't great. But then, neither are Constrain and Collapse either.
So, looking into the future, there's really only one kind of future that we might find acceptable, based on where we currently are today. One of the principles that we had when we were designing this was from a quote that we got from Kevin Anderson, who's a climatologist, saying that there are now no non-radical futures. And so, the idea of this is that we're taking people on a journey 30 years into the future to see how each of these four scenarios might play out. The way that we did this was quite interesting. So, we've built a room, essentially with a series of screens, and we take people in, 15 at a time, to go through the experience. And we begin by, first of all, explaining the framework. And then giving people some data points that we've put together. We have a research unit in the Climate Change and Sustainability Services practice called the New Economy Unit. And they've come up with some qualitative data about what each of those four scenarios would be like 30 years into the future.
So, people start milling around. Here are some data-led stories. These are things that people can get their heads about. And you can see the sort of data people starting to shine a bit. They're, like, “Okay, so, how did you come up with 2.9 degrees? Shouldn't it be 2.8? And world population, 8.5 billion? Wouldn't it be more, like, about 8 billion? And how do you come up with this?” And you kick off with a very kind of “left-brain approach” to what the future might be like. Great, because this is exactly what we're trying to do. We're getting people into a comfort zone. We're EY, as Bruno mentioned, we've got accounting in our bloodstream. We're good data people. So, people trust us. They come in, they start talking about data. When I say people, we're talking about — sorry, I should have explained the audience — CSOs mainly.
But we had quite a few CEOs as well — country delegates, students, you name it. We had, you know, hundreds and hundreds of people coming through at COP28. Anyway, they're in this left-brain mode, and talking about the data and then the screens begin to glitch. And there's interrupted each of these futures by people from the futures, telling their stories of what life is like. Now, these aren't sugarcoated futures. These are real — what things would be like if those futures were to come to pass. So, we have a woman who's in her apartment with her child, who can't go to school because her asthma’s been too bad, because of all the wildfires that are happening. We have someone who's fleeing their country because of massive over regulation and all the job losses that have come with that. We have someone who's hiding in a basement, because of riots that are happening outside, because of food shortages.
Now, these are quite dark scenarios. But the reality is if we continue on our current path, then this is what the future is going to be like. And there's a big difference between saying, “Hey, it's going to be 2.8 or it's going to be 2.9.” And realizing that this is going to mean food riots happening outside of your window in the developed world. So, what it then does is it makes it very real — what this world might feel like. And suddenly, people are transformed from being in a left-brain process to suddenly very much feeling this in a right-brain process. It doesn't end in a dark space. There is hope that comes at the end. And we don't sketch out too much how we're going to be getting there. But we do talk a little bit about what a transform or positive future might look like. People are taken through this journey. It's 20 to 25 minutes. And at the end of it, the lights come back up in the room and we stop. And we look each other in the eyes. And we say, how does that make you feel? And I tell you, I really wasn't expecting the kind of response that has happened the way that these stories have really touched people.
You have to remember that we're dealing with sustainability professionals here. This isn't new information to them. But I think what was new is feeling it and feeling it as a group. There's something about sharing stories together, which we've done for a hundred thousand years or longer as a species. A civilization is built on sharing stories. Doing that in an experience and coming out and going, right, we've been through this. We've felt this together. Now, what can we do to solve this as a group? And so, that's the final bit that's come out of this Four Futures. It's not just taking people through a transformational journey, and getting them to understand where the current path is taking us and how urgent it is for them to use their agency to push sustainable transformation at a pace they haven't even imagined. But also, the idea that we can do this by coming together. So, the stories have also created communities at practice that we are now looking to build and take forward as we start rolling this out. So, that's Four Futures in a nutshell.
Zedan
And Gareth, if I can just add what I absolutely love about this experience that you've created for people, is that if we extend it to the kinds of experiences and storytelling that our clients across sectors could create, is that you started with data. You started with modeling. You started with hard facts and figures and science. And then, you created the context around that that allowed people to experience those numbers in a fully immersive manner. And there are so many possibilities. This is where I get excited. There are so many different ways we can use all of the interesting data, numbers, coming out of our clients work — to tell different kinds of stories, to create experiences, to do it visually, not just in a PDF, to create something immersive. And we just have to have the will and the imagination to believe that we can do this. And I think we are starting to see that more and more with EY clients that to tell stories of impact, you have to, once again, come back to, you have to make people feel things. You have to spark their imagination. And it's great to do that for your workforce. On a side note,
Zedan
we live in a time right now, where Gen Z and millennials will comprise the majority of the workforce in 2030. And they are living their lives in a way that is one could say, perhaps, more authentic, more purpose-led or values-led, than generations before. They want to work for companies — for organizations — that have a sense of purpose and mission that is aligned with their own. And how do companies begin to build that bridge? It is through storytelling. It's through social impact — making the employees feel that they are connected to the larger purpose.
Sarda
Well, Gareth, I have to say, I was recently meeting with some clients, who attended and went through the experience in Dubai at COP28, who happened to work in the media and entertainment sector and who said that was definitely one of the most memorable parts of their experience at the
Climate Conference. And recently spoke to another chief sustainability officer, who said nothing had moved her like this since seeing “Inconvenient Truth” a couple of decades ago.
Jenkins
Hm.
Sarda
And really put it on par with this is something that could really transform how people really connect to this topic and encouraged that things like this are being put out in the realm of serious business discourse. And not left to either museums or theme parks or or futuristic labs. I think, you know, it's truly a testament to that power of compelling narratives. And I think, to your point, there's this sheer belonging of experiencing that story. And seeing that, in each of these futures, we are among others, who are also experiencing their own version of that narrative. And that there's something very compelling about that as well.
Jenkins
Something very beautiful about shared vulnerability. It's a great space to be able to start to build. Because working in this field, and I think anyone who has sort of a passing knowledge of the climate crisis, which is basically everyone now, with it comes a sense of alienation and of anxiety, a sense of hopelessness. How are we ever going to solve this? And when we look around at the inertia that we see, it's very easy to feel overwhelmed. Opportunities to come together as communities and build are really, really powerful, I think. Because what we need to be doing now is doubling down on hope. And the way to do that, I strongly believe, is by coming together, finding narratives that we can unite around, and pushing forward, redoubling our efforts.
I know I'm preaching to the choir here. Certainly, everyone on the podcast, and I imagine most of the audience, have made it their life’s work. But, you know, it's heartening that, for example, some of the media clients that you work with are really encouraged by this. I feel, like, you know, maybe there are opportunities in the future for more radical collaboration. Maybe there are ways that we're teaming with our clients to work with other people. There are some incredible storytellers out there. People have been doing this for forever. What would happen if we brought them into the sustainability fold more? What would happen if we got to work with them, with other clients? Where does all of this play out? I think it's, like Karima said, super exciting — the possibilities. I guess, for me, it's just the sense of urgency, given the nature of the crisis. I want to start doing it yesterday. So, as soon as this is over, let's get on the phone and let's start seeing where we go to next.
Sarda
This has been a heartening conversation. Any last point you'd like to share before we wrap, either of you?
Zedan
We often get asked by our clients, “So, how do we do this? How do we implement and win hearts and minds to really encourage a different narrative around sustainability and impact?” And the first step, really, just involves ensuring that your impact and sustainability strategies are aligned with your core business. One should reinforce the other. Your impact strategy should not be divorced from what you do as a business and who you are. That makes for a challenging story to tell. For example, if you are a telecommunications company, and all of your energy and your charitable dollars and your work with employees is going toward clearing the shelters, which is a cause near and dear to my heart, and many, it's not connected to your business in telecommunications. So, that is the first step. And once you have alignment there, then it really becomes a question of integration of many of your internal functions. It's your communications, your public policy, your government affairs function, your charitable arm, your core business, your HR teams and your DEI teams, coming together to start to build a unified narrative that embeds impact and sustainability across your functions.
No matter what you're talking about in your core business or across all of your functions, there is messaging tied to your role in the world and having greater impact. This makes your employees feel good. This plants the seeds of impact and sustainability across your business. It's easier said than done. We have to be patient and at the same time, act with urgency. But we are moving a very large system. So, I'm very supportive of the notion of planting seeds. That's how we start. We start to plant these seeds — these different narratives — across a number of business functions. And then we ensure alignment between people. And along the way, we are also building a narrative that this is not just nice-to-have. There are a host of benefits to the company and benefits to the world, to the communities you serve, to your brand in the world, and to the impact that you have on real people and real communities. And a return on your investment that could lead to growth in new markets or growth in revenue. So, the return is real. And we have to keep saying the same thing over and over and over again, until it really becomes internalized.
Jenkins
So, Karima, I'll pick up just on two things which I thought were really, really cool, when you just said, I love the idea of planting seeds. I’ll give you an example of that, one of the challenges that we've been having with Four Futures is its success. And the thing is that a story well-told invites other people to want to come and tell it. And so, what we're now facing as a capacity issue, because everybody who comes through wants us to take it back to their internal management teams. “You've got to show this to the CEO. You've got to show this to the CMO. I want you to show this to all of our people. They need to get it.” Now, that's what good stories do. They demand further retelling. Imagine if that was happening from one of our clients. I think that would be incredible. A good story is viral by nature. You plant seeds and they start sprouting and sprouting and sprouting. The other is around return of investment (ROI). And it seems fairly self-evident, but just to, sort of, say it out loud, this is also really good for your positioning. I think, you know, in a highly competitive marketplace, where products and services are increasingly difficult to differentiate, having a good story, and particularly a good sustainability story around that, is really powerful. And we've seen that at EY, for example, with our Four Futures. We've had several Fortune 50 CSOs, you know, giving feedback, that, you know, “Thank you so much, because this gives you great differentiation. And it makes it easier for me as a CSO to go on and recommend EY organization as our service provider of choice.” So, it's a great thing to do. I feel very powerfully about it, as we all do about the need for the rational and the emotional. But as you were saying, Karima, it also just makes really good business sense.
Sarda
Well, thank you both. Karima and Gareth, thanks so much for taking time out to have this compelling discussion on the significance and the power of storytelling and advancing sustainability and ultimately, what sustainability represents, which are more desirable, more aspirational versions of the futures that we want to create for ourselves and those whom we love. And connecting all of that to the human and societal outcomes that we can collectively relate to. So, I can't name the source, but I'm reminded, since you both shared such eloquent quotes, of this quote that, to change everything, we need everyone. And therefore, everybody has to feel part of these futures we create and the stories that surround them. And these have to be stories they want to, again, be part of and want to help make happen. So, as I said at the beginning of this episode, this is the Sustainability Matters Podcast. You can find all past episodes of the show on ey.com or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also now find the most recent episodes of our show on YouTube. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode of Sustainability Matters, we'd love for you to subscribe. Ratings, reviews and comments are all very welcome. Please also visit ey.com, where you will find a wide range of related and interesting articles that help put these bigger topics in the context of your business priorities. I look forward to welcoming you on the next episode of Sustainability Matters. My name is Bruno Sarda. You can find me on LinkedIn. And feel free to connect with me there. Thanks so much for listening.
