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Storytelling
Why small human stories make climate and sustainability reporting easier to believe
Climate statistics rarely move people. Small, local, human stories do. How sustainability and ESG teams can bring real people into their reporting, with consent.
Most sustainability reports are full of big numbers: tonnes of carbon, percentage reductions, net zero dates. They’re important and they’re necessary. They also slide past most readers without leaving a mark.
What people remember is the person. The caretaker working in a hotter building. The family whose street flooded for the first time. The community garden changing what it grows.
This guide is for sustainability, ESG and CSR teams who want their climate reporting to be read and remembered.
Why the numbers don’t land on their own
A global average temperature figure is hard to feel. It describes everywhere, so it seems to describe nowhere in particular. Corporate climate reporting adds targets, plans and frameworks on top, and readers’ attention drifts.
So keep the numbers, and give them a person.
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A number on its own is a claim. A number with a person inside it is proof.
What small stories do
They make it local. A change on a street people know is more real than a change in a global average.
They build trust. People may argue with a statistic. They rarely argue with someone’s direct experience.
They show action. A story about how a community, a supplier or a team adapted shows what your programme is actually doing.
Where to find them
Look for people already living with the change, or already responding to it:
staff adapting to hotter working conditions,
suppliers and partners dealing with flooding or disrupted seasons,
community groups your company funds, and what they’re doing differently,
the people your sustainability programme is meant to benefit.
Ask for: at least one consented human story alongside every headline climate figure in your next report.
Show change over time
One of the most useful things I’ve learned photographing corporate community programmes is that people value seeing the start, the middle and the end. The same applies to climate work. A single shot of a tree-planting day proves you were there. The same place photographed a year later, with the people who look after it, shows something changed.
Ask for: the same places and people photographed at the start of a programme and again at regular points, so the change can be seen.
Do it with care
The people in climate stories are often the ones with least power: low-paid workers, communities facing the worst effects, partners who depend on your funding. Ask for consent properly, let them see how they’ll appear, and make sure the story is about them rather than your company.
Six questions to ask before your next sustainability report
Which headline numbers need a person beside them?
Who is already living with the change we’re reporting on?
Who is already responding to it, and how?
Have they agreed to how they’ll appear?
Where can readers see change over time?
Is the story about them, or about us?
Where to start this week
Take the main climate figure from your last report. Write down one person or place it affects that your company is connected to. That’s your first story.
If you’d like documentary photography of your sustainability or community programmes, planned with consent and designed to show change over time, see CSR photography.
Questions people ask
Why use personal stories in ESG and sustainability reports?
Because readers remember people more than statistics. A consented human story makes the numbers believable and memorable.
Doesn’t this make reporting less rigorous?
No. The data stays. The story sits beside it, showing what the numbers mean on the ground.
Who should feature in climate stories?
People directly affected by the change or involved in responding to it, chosen with care and consent, and not your own executives.
Matt Mahmood-Ogston is a London-based social impact storyteller and documentary photographer. He founded the Naz and Matt Foundation in 2014 and has led it for more than 12 years.
