Climate Communications — From Losing the Argument to Winning It

Support CleanTechnica’s work through a Substack subscription or on Stripe.

Continuing from part one, here is part two of a two-part series on fixing climate communications.

Winston Churchill: “The farther back you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.”

If it is a truism that age and experience bring perspective, then, as someone who is 50+ and has run an agency in the climate and sustainability industry for 20 years, I should have it in droves. My ability to zoom out and take a perspective on the climate industry has also been shaped by its roller-coaster nature: the booms and busts, the promising springs and the desolate winters. One of the many lessons I have gained from living through industry cycles is the industry’s rhetorical absurdity of describing the same projects, technologies, and investments by a dizzying array of names and acronyms. In my two decades of working in climate, I have seen the industry refer to itself as clean tech, climate tech, ESG, energy transition, sustainability, decarbonization, efficiency, and now resilience. The work didn’t shift, but the way the climate community told the story did, and in hindsight, to poor effect.

The climate communications playbook has followed a predictable arc. When I started, the industry was about innovation, so the nomenclature was cleantech or climate tech. At some point in the late 2010s, ESG, a tidy acronym that bundled environmental, social, and governance considerations into a single investment lens, emerged as the organizing framework. And of course, we are now living through the backlash, and “ESG” is now a political third rail, particularly in the United States, where it has been recast as ideological overreach. So now, I think, we are back to sustainability, a term that was reminiscent of the 1970s and assumed to be broader, softer, harder to attack. Except it is easy to attack. Then 2024 hit, and the cycle accelerated in ways even veteran observers didn’t anticipate.

Since the 2024 elections, the industry has morphed at supersonic speed. Decarbonization, a term meant to ground the conversation in science and specificity, was quickly caricatured as radical and disruptive to incumbent industries. Efficiency stepped in as the politically neutral alternative since it’s hard to object to doing more with less. And now resilience is having its moment, framing the same capital investments as prudent risk management, with geopolitical chaos providing convenient cover.

The problem with this shapeshifting is that the political headwinds are a function of an opposition to the underlying commitments those words represent. Rhetorical flair cannot change that. The result is a communications strategy perceived as a gradual retreat, measured by one rebranding exercise at a time. The most relevant issue, the economic and business value of climate adoption, has never been directly addressed.

Energy is the foundation of every economy on earth. Focusing on the imperative of climate and sustainability business transformation without confronting the larger economic impact is a poor strategy. However, telling the climate story with the value proposition of cost, risk management, improved operational performance, supply chain resiliency, and long-term enterprise value is a winning one. It’s a strategy that appeals to the C-suite, is durable, and can be couched in shareholder returns. This is the argument, and the question is, why have we been so timid in shouting it from the rooftops?

Constant rebranding has also compromised the climate industry’s ability to engage with its most important stakeholders: investors, regulators, and the public. Every rebrand opens a window of confusion, granting permission to delay, defund, and deprioritize.

The road to redemption is to drop the defensive crouch and make a bold, confident, and convincing business case. There is no need to apologize for the motivation to reverse the ill effects of climate change, but there is no need, nor has it been effective, to lead with that argument, especially when it needs to be communicated in code and subterfuge.

Instead, let’s embrace the value propositions that hold the most sway with the people and organizations that need to embrace the industry for it to have a real impact. I am certain that the problem isn’t language. It’s courage and conviction.

By Keith Zakheim, CEO of Antenna Group