New narratives to drive Sustainable Transformation

Participating to a “new narrative workshop” ( ‘Fresque des nouveaux récits”) with the BAM sustainability think tank on March 12 in Fost Plus premises was an enlightening experience and I like to share some take aways and learning. Maxime Goffin ; Arnaud Le Flohic ; Dominique Siplet ; Nicolas Lambert ; Alain Mayné

New Narratives are key to help adoption of new sustainable behaviours and practices as a lot of problematic behaviours ( over consumption , over individualism ?… ) are driven by current Value & Narratives

Part 1 of the workshop allowed us to gradually identify 5 blocking factors and possible unlock keys

1)???? Competition / individualism hampers social relationships and reduces our chance of survival as a group… Greater Cooperation is the key here , especially given the systemic nature of most sustainability challenges.

2)???? Many Social Norms are conducive of environmentally and socially damaging behaviours. Evolution of some of those norms are required to spread more sustainable life styles. This is where new narratives are required to spread new social norms more compatible with planetary boundaries and a social floor. The good news is that , like for technology , when a critical mass is reached ( between 10 and 20% of population) norms can start shifting.

3)???? Historically, Advertising narrative has been all about stimulating the desire for more material consumption which has led to the great acceleration and the massive overconsumption we see in many areas in our western Society. As The Harvard Study on happiness as shown , beyond a minimum material comfort threshold, the quality of social relations is what correlates most with a high degree of happiness. As marketeers , we have a critical role to play to use the power of advertising to promote sustainable behaviours and values and to make “sustainable desirable”

4)???? ?Overinformation, Confirmation Bias and ‘ Echoing Rooms’ ( such as social network groups being fed only with similar views) create a more divided and polarized Society. Again New Narratives can promote a new vision of Society and the "workshop" proposes the doughnut economics model ?( Living within planetary boundaries while guaranteeing an acceptable living & wellbeing standard for all) as such a vision.

5)???? Alarmist Narratives and Business as Usual Narratives generate cognitive dissonance which , for many people lead to passive pessimism or passive optimism. New narratives which can connect action and hope are critical to get broader change.

This is a summary and much richness comes from doing the exercise as a group.

Part 2 was a well structured co creation exercise in smaller groups picking a required behaviour / system change topic and building a 10 year Vision and Narrative to drive the vision . The structured process proposed was really strong.

This is where the power of collective intelligence really came through. I am amazed by what my group ( Maxime Van der Meerschen , Annie Courbet , Catherine Willemart ) and other groups came up with and this made me more confident that “marketing can help save the world’ as my friend Nicolas Lambert has written in his book.

Our group focused on a narrative and actions to help drive low carbon short haul travel highlighting the experience and adventure that nearby travel and?? slower travel ( including by train) can bring and thinking of a norm diffusion model.

This ?powerful exercise can be integrated within the journey of ?purposeful businesses looking to bring Sustainability, Business Strategy and Marketing together. It can nourish the approach that Nicolas Lambert and I have developed to help activate and / or accelerate an integrated Marketing & Sustainability Strategy.

I definitely recommend the experience. Glad to hear reactions and have a chat.