What does “sustainable consumption” bring to mind?
Reusable coffee cups rather than radical change.
The phrase “sustainable consumption” puts the emphasis squarely on “consumption”. It leaves us with the impression that (if we can afford it) we can buy whatever we want – as long as it is labelled “eco-friendly”.
The Funders for Sustainable Living network (F4SL) has been exploring the role funders can play in re-framing “sustainable consumption” as a Climate Justice issue, with the expert guidance of Hannah Smith from Public Interest Research Centre (PIRC). In an example presented during the latest workshop, the term “climate change” evoked thoughts and images of polar bears, wildfires, extreme weather disasters, and unhappy protesters. These catastrophic frames point to deeper narratives about humans fearing or battling against nature.
Framing consumption as a Climate Justice issue
PIRC´s research into Framing Climate Justice reveals that messaging used by the climate movement – for example, around capitalism and colonialism – may seem abstract to the general public, who are more likely to refer to direct experience and tangible issues such as the social and environmental impacts of buying a cheap T-shirt.
“I like having concrete data about what works and what doesn’t in framings, it is fascinating and not intuitive for those of us who are really immersed in a climate bubble.”
Quote from workshop participant
One of the deep narratives we need to change is that “climate change and social injustice are accidental”: as a movement, we need to go deeper than just clever messaging in order to galvanize support for changing exploitative and unsustainable systems.
“The neoliberal agenda has been so successful in redesigning our economy, that we have forgotten it didn’t use to be this way, [that] there was a transition to this economy. Is this collective memory something we can draw on?”
Quote from workshop participant
Hannah´s presentation – explaining the differences between messaging, framing and deep narrative change, and introducing the Framing Climate Justice toolkit – can be viewed here:
Moving from individual to collective power
Deep narrative change can take years, or even generations, and so requires sustained investment from funders and civil society. But funders – indeed everyone – can help to kick-start that narrative change process by using the Public Narrative technique (developed by Marshall Ganz and successfully used by the Obama Campaign). The technique reveals how the way we speak can inspire action with others, regardless of culture, class or politics.
We practised developing our Public Narratives on the theme of “consumption as a climate justice issue” by workshopping the three key storytelling elements:
By starting from crafting our “Story of Self”, we share our values and experience, and connect with others by revealing the deeper reasons for why we care about this work.
The “Story of Us” then builds connection and trust through our shared values and shared experience – and ideally leads towards a collective vision.
The “Story of Now” completes the picture with the power to move us from fear (about our shared urgent challenge), to hope (through a call to action).
Shared narratives help us to build movements
Experimenting with the Public Narrative technique felt very personal and human – in stark contrast to the more technical starting points usually used to craft messages. We felt comfortable with this technique because it helps us to find common values and shared vision, while avoiding shame and fear. The “Story of Us” exercise revealed a surprisingly wide range of personal motivations for this work, which demonstrates how important it is to facilitate diverse entry points for engagement in movements. As well as learning about funding larger narrative change interventions, it was exciting to see that we can all learn how to create narrative change and use this in our everyday work and wider everyday life – and that is a change we can start making today!
“I wonder how much of the current messaging/campaigns from the ENGO sector can be classed as using effective frames? As funders, we often receive proposals to “do narrative work”, which is usually standard messaging campaigns.”
Quote from workshop participant
Hannah´s 15-minute introduction to Public Narrative Technique can be viewed here:
What can funders do?
Funders left the workshop with energy and enthusiasm for re-framing consumption as an urgent – but hopeful – climate justice issue. As participants had many questions about how funders can best support narrative change for consumption as a climate justice issue, Hannah guided us to resources to deepen our work in this area:
- a guide to Funding narrative change,
- understanding how movements are Building an ecosystem for narrative power and using narratives for political work
- considering What would it take for Narrative Change work to have more real-world impact and the role funders can play in making this happen.
The F4SL Network is planning further work on this and other topics, so please get in touch if you are interested!
Kate Power convenes Funders for Sustainable Living, an open network promoting ambitious action for radically equitable and sustainable ways of living. It sounds depressing but it´s actually a lot of friendship and fun!
Our upcoming workshops will explore hot issues for funders including sufficiency, redefining luxury, and Care economy. If you are a funder curious about the connections between equality, ecology and society, feel welcome to join a future workshop: k.power@hotorcool.org
