How can you effectively communicate to promote sustainability in your community?

Agreed. Stakeholder mapping is amongst the important tasks to conduct before taking on a platform. Knowing who you are addressing, sets the tone for your message.

Keep it simple, just provide value first to your community. Share news, knowledge and tips that are useful to them. The selling of your environmental consulting services can come later as a result of the trust that you built.

Communication is all about the audience and the message and the two need to fit and balance. That is the goal. No point lecturing except to students and professionals but likewise being too friendly and minimalist can come across as false as if you are selling snake oil. Ideally it should also be interactive in some way so there is a feeling of sharing the experience. This can be through humor which is a good emotion to use sparingly, unless you are not a stand up comedian. A summary of your message does not have to be power point on a screen and indeed something physical they can take away (or you used for the promotion?) can be significantly more effective - look at the way politicians use canvasing leaflets for example.

Absolutely. appropriate medium and method once you have set your goals and determined what the tag line or key message you want them to take home will be. Usually these will fall straight out of them, but take time to think through other options and appraise them. A picture paints a thousand words perhaps but it needs to be the right picture or it can send entirely the wrong message so always get someone else's opinion before presenting and make sure you are happy working in it. No point trying to do a podcast, remote presentation or video if you are camera shy, but if you have some skill at animation... Work to your strengths in the different media as you will come across more confidently in the belief in your message.

Absolutely always try to avoid acronyms and jargon unless the audience is already aware of them (a group at a PFAS conference probably already knows what it stands for), but if you do make sure they are clearly explained This can sometimes be a good ice breaker if you make it humorous... Feedback is vital, learn to read your audience and change your style to fit their expectations, that is what most performers do and there are plenty of references out there that can teach you this skill if you cannot do it naturally - I learned how during my PGCE teacher training for example.

Feedback is key, ask for opinions, canvas opinions, review, revise, update, question and improve. Its what I tell all my Chartered Geologist mentees when they are considering their presentations for CGeol

Teacher training has been one of the most useful skill sets I could ever have wanted given what I do now as you are really at the sharp end of communication, sink or swim. Nothing phases you after you have managed to teach something scientific to 32 hormone bursting young adults who do not want to be there, both you and they survived without injury (or loss) and you now want me to present to 500 professionals online who want to be there about a topic I am genuinely passionate about? No worries. Play to your strengths to get the most effective message across and look at all the options.