Talking about the climate at work
Our recent Design+Climate event looked at ‘how to talk about designing for the climate at work’. A topic we identified as a key barrier to persuading clients and colleagues to include the environment in design briefs. Here’s a wrap up of our key, actionable learnings to improve your climate chat.
We were lucky to be joined by Tom Crompton from the Common Cause Foundation and Chris Adams from Greening Digital and ClimateAction.Tech, to share their different approaches to climate conversations, from Tom’s values to Chris’ tools.
Values and tools are both important to shape good conversations that inspire action:
“In order to get to values, you need explicitness about what you are doing now and what the impacts of this might be …. Then we can ask, how is the work we are doing meeting those values?” Chris Adams
Using Values
Values influence the importance we place on the environment and in turn how others value the environment too. There are two sets of values which are particularly relevant in the context of climate conversations:
- Compassionate values
- Self-interested values
Compassionate values include caring for the environment, social justice, equality and communities. These values are all connected, engaging one increases our likelihood of engaging the others. Self-interested values include values such as status, public image, power and wealth. Tom’s research found that self-interested values are psychologically opposed to compassionate values. So when we use self-interested values we weaken our compassionate values, including care for the environment.
Designers often fall into the trap of talking in terms of profit and reputation to win support for climate actions at work. We assume that our bosses and clients care more about self-interested values than compassionate values. However, this is not true:
Common Cause’s UK Values Survey found that 74% of people placed greater importance on compassionate values than selfish values, yet 77% of people believed that their fellow citizens hold selfish values to be more important.
These assumptions create a vicious circle; if we think no one else cares about the environment then we are less likely to act or speak out, which in turn discourages others. Yet if we see other people speaking about compassionate values and the environment, we feel more confident in acting and making public testimony of those values ourselves.
Takeaways:
- Speaking and acting in line with our compassionate values at work encourages other people to do the same.
- Frame the climate crisis more widely than carbon emissions and the environment. It is also a crisis of equality, health and social justice. Talking about these values is likely to engage more people.
Using Tools
Designers encounter many drivers and barriers to consider the climate in our work, including legislation and policy.
But there are practical activities we can use to hold conversations that make explicit the impact of our designs and how unsustainable they often are. By making the social and environmental costs visible, and considering the cost of inaction as well as the cost of action, we can open up different framings. Microsoft’s internal Carbon Fee includes the environmental impact in decision making, and Doteveryone’s Consequence Scanning Kit helps teams think through the unintended consequences of our designs. You can read Chris’ full list of drivers, barriers and tools in our original slide deck.
Takeaway:
A good way to start climate conversations is through group activities and icebreakers. Safe group activities, such as the Climate Call card game, allow people to admit their lack of knowledge about environmental impacts which creates space to reframe the discussion.
From talking to action
Three weeks later we held a Design+Climate follow-up discussion, to hear how people had digested the talk and what actions we had taken.
Five takeaways from the Design+Climate community:
- Use underlying values to craft a wider narrative that connects the multiple crises we are living through, to show where they overlap and which values are needed to provide support across them.
- Remember to talk about co-benefits of environmental improvements, beyond carbon emissions. For example, the ripple effect that insulating homes has on finance, education and health.
- Counter feeling overwhelmed or powerless by pinpointing your immediate sphere of influence. Who do you have the power to influence? Find out who influences them.
- One of our community had the chance to apply compassionate values in a heated community thread about new space for walking and cycling. Instead of reacting defensively to an opposing opinion, they provided evidenced-based comments in an unbiased tone which enabled both parties to find common ground through compassionate values and helped people realise they were all trying to achieve the same goals. This transformed the conversation into a positive thread with wider contributions.
- Revisit our Design+Climate introduction slides to talk about the climate, from a compassionate values point of view.
We hope these learnings inspire you to speak out about the climate at your work and create change from inside organisations. Have a go and let us know how you get on!
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