Sustainability: A Cause in Search of a Story

Posted in The Strategist on April 26th, 2005

Robert Altman’s wonderfully cynical film about the movie business, The Player, contains an essential truth about stories that advocates of sustainability would do well to remember. In the film, the central character is asked why a particular screenplay wasn’t filmed. He says it lacked certain qualities necessary to make a commercially successful movie. There is a pause. He expands on his answer. He says up, as opposed to down; happy as opposed to sad; hopeful as opposed to desperate; and a happy ending…especially a happy ending. His point is that while all people like stories; most people like stories that offer hope – and a happy ending. Stories in which good triumphs over evil. Stories propelled by an engaging and entertaining narrative – the route to the happy ending matters.

Now consider the way in which the sustainability “story” has been told. Is it any wonder the majority of people have tuned out? So many of the efforts to get more people “living like they plan on staying” read and sound like a mother trying to coax her kids to eat vegetables – this may not taste good, but it’s good for you! We can do better. We need to do better.

Lest readers wonder if I’ve forgotten about those relatively well-known individuals, cities and organizations that are brokering novel collaborations and incubating new sustainable business models and technologies, I’m not talking here about the relatively thin edge of leaders (that’s another newsletter). Instead, I’m talking about “the other 80%”, the large clot of individuals, cities and organizations whose behaviour must change if society is ever to approach a relationship with the Earth that can be called sustainable.

To be sure, the complex patterns of interaction that characterize biological and human systems cry out for new ideas, technologies and collaborations, but what is most needed is a new story. And that story is not about making people aware of the true costs of energy, to take a topical example, or pointing out that non-carbon alternatives to gasoline are available that won’t cramp anyone’s style. This is subtext. The real story is about home – the places we live, and our relationships with others. The real story is about how we give meaning and value to the idea of home. Ted Chamberlin makes this point beautifully in his protean book, If This Is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories?

Except for the idea of a creator, there is no idea quite as bewildering as the idea of home, nor one that causes as many conflicts…Can one land ever really be home to more than one people? To native and newcomer, for instance? Or to Arab and Jew, Hutu and Tutsi, Albanian and Kosovar, Turk and Kurd? Can the world ever be home to all of us? I think so. But not until we have reimagined Them and Us.

Throughout history humans have divided the world and its peoples into friend and foe, them and us – with catastrophic results. And we continue to do so today, and not simply at a national or international scale. Look closely at any city, or indeed at any organization, and you will see the separation of people into distinct camps, cliques, or tribes. One of the most important things we lose through this separation is an awareness and appreciation for other people’s stories and the lessons they might hold:

Other people’s stories are as varied as the landscapes and languages of the world; and the storytelling traditions to which they belong tell the different truths of religion and science, of history and the arts. They tell people where they came from, and why they are here; how to live, and sometimes how to die. They come in many different forms, from creation stories to constitutions, from southern epics and northern sagas to native American tales and African praise songs, and from nursery rhymes and national anthems to myths and mathematics.

So, how to move forward? How to write the kind of story the sustainability cause needs? The answer will not be found in the usual places. Which is to say that benchmarking studies, stakeholder engagement exercises, and business case development – all tools of the trade for most sustainability efforts – must be viewed as accents and nuance. They enrich the narrative, but they are not the narrative. Just as special effects never make up for a lack of plot in a movie. Should we talk to people and create business cases to support an argument for sustainability? Yes, but we should recognize the limits of such an approach. To paraphrase the business strategist, Gary Hamel, customers are notoriously lacking in foresight – they often don’t know they want something until it is thrust upon them. We therefore need to forge a story about sustainability that hasn’t been told yet (or told well). We need to shape a compelling vision of the future, and sell that vision with the kind of passion, money and marketing savvy that Hollywood sells movies. We need to convince people through the art of storytelling that this vision is worth fighting for. And it’s okay if the story seems strange – this is what will first take hold of us (and others) and make us believe it.

Nothing happens without first a dream. My dream is a world in which human society lives in a more sustainable relationship with the Earth, and with each other. To get there, we need to write a new story – a story about the future and what can be done now to secure it. We also need to sell this story in ways that heretofore have been overlooked by the sustainability community. We have a great cause; what we lack is a story to grow the constituency of supporters for that cause. Over the coming months I’ll be striving to create such a story. I’ll need help. Let me know if you want to join me in creating the future…