How sustainability storytelling changes the world
Guna fishermen sailing the waters around Guna Yala.
Photo Credit: Mike Hower
My calling as a sustainability storyteller found me over a decade ago on a remote island chain off the Caribbean coast of Panama. After quitting my first corporate communications job out of college to spend a year volunteering in Central and South America, my travels brought me to the San Blas Archipelago’s sun-kissed islands — also known as Guna Yala by the indigenous people who inhabit them.
If you asked an artificial intelligence for a scene of heaven on earth, it might generate something resembling these islands. Ranging in size from a standard city block to a few soccer fields, they featured white, sandy beaches dotted with tall bunches of palm trees. The Gunas administer the islands as their own comarca — or indigenous territory — offering a glimpse into a well-preserved pre-Columbian American culture.
During my time in Guna Yala’s capital of Gaigirgordub, I walked with a local English-speaking guide to learn more about the culture, history and customs of the Gunas. The guide spoke of how the Gunas originally had inhabited parts of what is now Northern Colombia and the Darién Province of Panama — but fled to the archipelago to escape the Spanish conquest.
But while the islands had protected the Gunas from Columbus, they wouldn’t be safe from the impacts of a warming world.
“One day, we’ll need to evacuate back to the mainland when the waters rise,” he said.
Guna Yala’s islands sit at sea level, and even a small rise would be enough for the sea to swallow them.
While today the concept of the climate crisis being, well, a crisis is widely accepted by those who trust climate science, back in the early 2010s this still was a novel notion for many in the United States and Europe — where we hadn’t yet experienced the onslaught of climate impacts that have become today’s norm.
Seeing first hand how the climate crisis already was creating a clear and present danger for humans sparked a fire within me that burns to this day. Having always been drawn to storytelling as a writer and strategic communicator, I had long searched for a way to deploy these skills in service of something that mattered more than just bolstering someone’s bottom line.
I decided on Gaigirgordub to devote my life and career to helping communities like the Gunas by spurring sustainability action through compelling communication. Upon returning home to the states, this newfound purpose led me to discover the sustainable business movement that I still am part of today.
A very young me en route to one of the islands in Guna Yala.
Photo Credit: Mike Hower
The power of good stories
Stories can change the world. From the earliest tales told by ancient humans huddled around crackling campfires to the provocations of the Enlightenment thinkers and the great oratories of the Civil Rights Movement, storytelling has transformed societies and shaped history. Stories help humans make sense of an overwhelmingly complex world as we go about our daily lives. By serving as a heuristic — or mental shortcut — stories simplify the high volumes of data that pervades our waking hours and shape our values, identities, understanding and, ultimately, our priorities.
But storytelling — like the Force of Star Wars lore — isn’t inherently good or bad. Stories move governments, businesses and individuals into climate action and inaction alike. Bad stories about truths are ignored, while good stories about falsities are adored.
To address the climate crisis in the limited time we have left, we must learn to tell better stories. For those of us working in corporate sustainability, improving how we communicate climate to internal and external audiences is critical for keeping businesses honest and on track to achieving net zero and other sustainability goals.
That is why I have devoted Hower Impact’s business focus to helping organizations and individuals improve their sustainability storytelling. I do this through my writing, The Sustainability Communicator podcast, LinkedIn content and speaking engagements. And I do this by engaging with and learning from my followers like you.
The Gunas going about their daily lives on the capital island of Gaigirgordub.
Photo Credit: Mike Hower
We are all the Gunas
Since returning from my travels in 2012, the climate plights experienced by the Gunas have caught up with folks living in the United States and Europe. We’ve seen record breaking heat waves, droughts, storms and other extreme weather events. Meanwhile, the climate crisis has become increasingly politicized in the United States to the point that meaningful policy change at the federal level is unlikely without a dramatic shift in the narrative.
As for the Gunas, their climate story is a precarious one. Sea level rise is causing the low-lying islands to flood more frequently to the point that the Gunas must now leave their ancestral homes in what will be one of the largest climate-related migrations in modern history. This is yet another example of a community that has done little to perpetuate global warming suffering the most from its impacts.
On this Earth Day, remember that we are all the Gunas. What’s happening to them will happen to us — we must step up our sustainability storytelling game in a way which spurs widespread, decisive and sustained action. This isn’t a story only of sacrifice — many climate solutions are enormous opportunities for creating social and economic value.
Yet while humans already have many of the solutions needed to avert the worst consequences of the climate crisis, we lack the ability to inform, inspire and persuade a critical mass to act decisively and immediately.
The climate crisis may be one of the greatest stories ever told — and it’s up to us to decide what happens next.
This articles originally appeared in the ENGAGE newsletter on April 22, 2024. Subscribe to the newsletter here.
