The 7 ways to successfully communicate sustainability

The guide identifies key barriers to sustainability communication, including justified mistrust and the lack of immediate benefits for audiences. It proposes seven strategies: prioritizing transparency, ensuring engagement without fear, simplifying complex data into relatable units, basing claims on facts, focusing on positive action rather than catastrophe, innovating communication methods, and reducing the overuse of the word 'sustainable'.

• Sustainability communication is hindered by several systemic barriers: a justified mistrust of those communicating sustainability, widespread misinformation, the difficulty of shifting mentalities when there is no immediate benefit to the audience, and the tendency for scientific facts to be presented as boring or confusing.
• To improve effectiveness, sustainability communications should avoid using catastrophe as a tool for engagement, as this can reinforce skepticism among those who have previously ridiculed such rhetoric.
• The guide recommends simplifying communication by using relatable units of measurement to help people understand environmental impacts, such as translating a red steak into litres of water or a pair of jeans into shower time.
• There is a suggested inverse relationship between the frequency of the word 'sustainability' on a brand's webpage and the brand's actual sustainability; data from the report 'Words that work: Effective language in sustainability communications' shows the word is repeated 10 times on average for Forbes’ top 50 brands, while the most sustainable brands used it only once.

APA

Ortolani, G. (2022). The 7 ways to successfully communicate sustainability. World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/stories/climate-action/how-to-communicate-sustainability/

Chicago

Ortolani, Giorgia. The 7 ways to successfully communicate sustainability. World Economic Forum, 2022. https://www.weforum.org/stories/climate-action/how-to-communicate-sustainability/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Ortolani |first1=Giorgia |title=The 7 ways to successfully communicate sustainability |publisher=World Economic Forum |date=1 July 2022 |url=https://www.weforum.org/stories/climate-action/how-to-communicate-sustainability/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{ortolani2022ways, author = {Ortolani, Giorgia}, title = {{The 7 ways to successfully communicate sustainability}}, institution = {World Economic Forum}, year = {2022}, month = jul, url = {https://www.weforum.org/stories/climate-action/how-to-communicate-sustainability/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }