So, you like the environment?
So, you care for sustainability?
You care for turtles & trees, turning the lights off when they’re not in use, stopping climate change and the dearth of biodiversity loss that epitomizes the ongoing sixth mass extinction?
So what?
Why should I care?
That’s the big question…
“Why should I care?” Is the question every brain seeks to answer when confronted with a decision. And failing to answer that question is the big failing of those seeking to advance sustainability.
According to former FBI hostage negotiator Chris Voss, the first idea a person has when they meet someone new is “how is this person going to benefit me?”
If we asked expert marketer Gretta Rose van Riel, she’d characterize the message of sustainability as not offering anything useful or valuable to people. In the developed world, it is difficult to locate on Mazlow’s hierarchy of needs.
If we asked Malcolm Gladwell, he’d say sustainability isn’t going viral because the message isn’t sticky enough. Sustainability as a message fails to reach “the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point.”
But some people have noticed this failure.
Let’s look at Tesla.
Tesla understands sustainability doesn’t touch the heart of most people.
Most consumers—and automotive companies—didn’t care about electric cars until Elon Musk made them cool. Tesla accounted for utility, inspiration, convenience, and self-actualization, and by doing so built a brand that makes sustainability relevant.
With pop culture references—memes, humor, and personality—Elon set the new standard for what a sustainable energy brand must have, a standard even reflected in the company’s product naming conventions. **Originally, Elon Musk wanted the Model 3 to be named Model E, but Ford trademarked the name out of spite for Tesla.
But why did this happen?
Upon closer inspection, we find that the letters in Model S, Model E, Model X, and Model Y spell out “SEXY.” Tesla doesn’t just seek the prominence of electric vehicles. The company seeks emotional impact. Tesla seeks something personal, and now they’re out-competing in key markets.
You may be thinking, “But sustainability is cool!” And yes, sustainability is cool, but that’s just the perspective of you and me. What about the next person? Just because we perceive it as cool doesn’t make everyone else perceive it as such. Other people care for—are motivated by—different things. To move the needle on sustainability, we have to consider this fact of humanity—something the Nissan Leaf, the first legitimate electric car, wasn’t fully capable of doing.
And yes, sure, sustainability prevents famine and war by keeping our waters and soils clean. But this is logic, something the human brain doesn’t respond to.
Consider this: scientists have argued for two decades that fast food isn’t the healthiest source of food; public schools even have mandatory health and nutrition courses, and consumer still flock to McDonald’s and Whataburger—all because nutrition scientists, educators, and policy makers failed to understand human hearts.
However, Beyond Meat, a meat alternative company, did account for human hearts.
They responded to the big question by developing a plant-based burger that looks, tastes, smells, feels, cooks, and chews like meat.
Beyond Meat screams: you don’t have to change to eat plant-based. You don’t have to change to stop supporting the unsustainable meat industry.
Tesla and Beyond Meat are but a few organizations that answer the big question properly. They demonstrate this understanding by employing a superior marketing strategy, one derived from evolutionary and behavioral psychology.
This strategy understands that throwing scientific jargon at people doesn’t motivate healthy action, but improving the taste of a plant-based recipe, and making an electric car look and feel 10X better than the diesel alternative might tip the odds in favor of people selecting the more sustainable option.
And that’s exactly what we need, a change in human behavior, not a change in human hearts, and definitely not a change in humans themselves.
The industry of sustainability and related research must undergo a radical self-analysis and self-transformation.
We are too busy trying to reinvent the human being into something sustainable, rather than reinventing sustainable solutions into something relevant and exciting.
Let’s find a solution compelling enough for people to desire.
Let’s find a solution that’s convenient enough for consumers to utilize.
Let’s answer the question: Why should I care?
When we do these things, then maybe, maybe people will care far before it’s too late.
The Greenhouse Blog 