Listening, not telling, holds the communications key to corporates’ climate challenges

I’ve been in the communications business for almost 30 years, wedged firmly in broadcast mode either as a journalist, comms director for the Bank of England or, latterly, as an advisor to large and complex organisations. I’ve assumed that the most effective way to influence and rally support is by explaining, arguing, convincing; it seemed the natural response to an increasingly polarised and noisy world.

But recently I’ve swapped rhetoric for dialogue and have become convinced that in fact it’s deep listening that will uncover the actions businesses need to take to reach their ambitious net zero commitments.

My Damascene conversion came after working with North Star Transition, a not for profit that has the modest ambition of bringing about system change to fix our climate and biodiversity crises. That work to date has focused on change at the nation or systemic scale; the Wales transition Lab is tackling the nation’s triple crises in food, health and nature, the Regenerative Investment Lab is asking what kind of financial system we need to profitably finance a regenerative economy.

But what is proving effective at a nation scale offers a compelling blueprint for success at the level of an organisation.

The Wales Transition Lab provides a great example of how. It brings together around 30 ‘unlikely allies’ from across diverse sectors; there are farmers, local water utilities, the regional NHS trusts, educators, the local tourism industry. Over a series of labs co-facilitated by the UCL’s Climate Action Unit, participants listen, learn about others’ perspectives and together understand the issues to be solved and then conceive the actions that will solve them.

The interdependent scale of the challenge is clear. Take the issue of a Welsh farmer converting to organic. The existing system makes it extremely hard; seeds come with fertilisers and pesticides needed to grow them, transition away from that takes years, the market at the end is by no means assured. But if the farmer does convert, the co-benefits spread far beyond her fields; better soil quality improves carbon sequestration, benefitting the whole community, it increases water retention, reducing the risk of flooding and subsequent payouts by insurance firms, it cuts nitrate run off into rivers, reducing pollution fines for water companies, it improves nutrition levels in crops, improving health outcomes and pressure on the NHS, it could even be argued that it changes the whole landscape with a knock on beneficial impact on tourism. Under the existing system, the farmer has to shoulder the financial burden of converting to organic, but it’s the whole community that would benefit, environmentally and financially. The result is stasis. 

The Lab joins all those disconnected stakeholders together, uncovers the co-benefits, identifies the blockages from them being realised and co-creates the actions needed to unblock the system. It turns it from a problem too big for one person to fix into an opportunity for many to benefit. One example of a project to emerge from the Wales Lab is that the Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board has begun work mapping the supply chain of its food procurement; at present practically none of the multi million pound in-patient food budget is spent in Wales. Finding out why, where the blockages lie - wholesaler specifications, menu guidelines, co-benefits being unaccounted for - is the first step to changing that.

This methodology to uncover the actions needed is equally applicable to the boardroom table. Anyone who has sat on an ExCo knows the interdependencies that can block progress; the silos, the budget wrangling, the fight to get your department’s work prioritised, the resource constraints. Nowhere is this becoming more prevalent than when it comes to the actions needed to meet an organisation’s climate commitments - rather than just enjoying the uplift that comes from talking about them publicly.

The path to corporate net zero is paved with good intentions - and trade offs. The Sustainability Chief is advocating recycled packaging, inadequate supply means procurement cannot guarantee that at the budget allocated by the CFO, retail wants to sell smaller portions that carry bigger margins - and more packaging, People want to show colleagues that environmental rhetoric is real, Investor Relations want to prove the business’s ESG credentials are sound but that its EBIT is also stellar and the comms department is trying heroically to pull it all together into a credible narrative. And that’s with a problem that has already been defined - the reality is that many organisations have not mapped their path to net zero yet, unsurprisingly given we’re still around four wholesale ExCo changes away from the team that will finally be judged on its success or otherwise.

The result can be a dangerous lack of progression along the path to a corporate’s net zero goals. The key to moving at the speed needed is not to just tick ESG boxes, it is to understand the trade offs - present in any business - own them collectively, decide on the priorities and agree them as a team and, critically, co-create the solutions rather than making them someone else’s problem.

In other words, the key is dialogue, listening and understanding others’ perspectives. Corporate Affairs Directors are ideally placed to facilitate this dialogue, with their bird’s eye view of an organisation, their skill at relationship building, their ability to bring the outside perspective in and their role in enabling the health and mission of the whole firm. However, it is not as easy as it sounds.

Harold Bloom, the New York literary critic, thought it a mark of genius, this ‘capacious consciousness’. He argued that the genius has the peculiar ability to imagine and to engender an abundance of perspectives, both of and beyond the time period in which she lives. And through the creative process, the genius deepens and expands the awareness of her audience.

We’re all going to have to find our inner geniuses if we’re to solve the crises that confront us.

 Jenny Scott, Partner, Apella Advisors.