ROUNDTABLE MEETING REPORT TOWARDS A SAFE AND SUSTAINABLE FUTURE 17
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THE NEED FOR A COMPELLING SUSTAINABILITY NARRATIVE
A clear message that emerged from the roundtable was the urgent need for a more widely shared understanding of the challenges and opportunities sustainability poses. Simply put: the world needs a common language of sustainability that is at once transformative and realistic, and that communicates, simplifies, and inspires. A story about the challenges, the consequences of doing nothing and a vision of the desirable future destination that we would like to see. Many of the participants felt this was a key starting point for change.
SPEAK TO HEARTS AND MINDS Inertia prevails in the private and public domain, despite the overwhelming scientific evidence that we are moving towards greater challenges. Rationally we know that, through the choices we make every day, we have the power to change our destiny. However, the objective rational approach has only taken us so far. Facts appear to have insufficient capacity to compel change.
«There are now discussions between the idea of stranded assets and a stranded planet. Those words, that idea, has changed the debate.» Connie Hedegaard
There is nothing as powerful for changing mindsets as a good story, well told. Focusing on the delivery of information will not suffice to discourage the continuation of arrested patterns of behaviour and business as usual. Stories are needed that touch us on many levels – emotional as well as rational. We need to tell compelling stories about sustainability that speaks to hearts and minds, to change behaviours. We need to start telling an alternative story, and create new myths, that begin to formulate what the desired sustainable world looks like. This will help us see clearer what we really desire, as well as the new paths of actions, practices and solutions needed to get there. Visions help orient actions towards goals located in the future, and a compelling sustainability story would create a backdrop of understanding and foundation for setting in motion new ways of thinking and new courses of action.
«Shell brings scenarios into the world to transparently create dialogue - creating memories of the future that people can act on.» Jeremy Bentham