Whenever I talk with sustainability professionals about their top challenges in achieving net zero and circular economy outcomes.

Overwhelmingly the most common and most frustration issue I hear is the challenge of getting buy-in from others.

Convincing customers, staff, and management to get onboard with sustainability is probably one of the hardest things we do and it is exhausting – but it doesn’t have to be this way.  This article will give you a simple and easy to use technique to unlock your persuasion superpowers.

Rule #1 – Think like a Caveman

The biggest mistake I see sustainability people making is that they think that they can simply educate others into being more sustainable.  They give them a solid business case, maybe a fact sheet, access to information on a website, even explain why action on climate change is so urgent.

The problem is that people don’t make decisions based on rational thoughts and logical thinking.  Just like you people make most of their decisions based on emotions.

The reason we use emotions is that our brains receive nearly 11 million bits of information every second.

But our conscious minds can handle only around 120 bits of information a second.

So our brain takes shortcuts and make most of our decisions on autopilot and emotions play a big role in this.

In the 1960’s Paul MacLean, a neuroscientist, introduced the triune brain model. It explained the theory of how our brains were split into three areas. The reptilian brain takes care of our basic autopilot needs. The mammal brain deals with emotions. And the human brain deals with higher levels of thought, like language and imagination.

For simplicity, think of your brain as having an executive thinking brain (human brain) and a feeling emotional brain (reptile + mammal brain). The executive brain processes complex information and language but is relatively new in evolutionary terms and only plays a minor part in decision making.

Our emotional brain is where decision making really occurs and it has evolved to make decisions very quickly as a survival mechanism.

10,000 years ago, if there was a physical threat you had to react quickly and run away otherwise you would likely get eaten by something with big teeth. Those that reacted quickly to chemicals being produced in their brains ran away and survived, to then reproduce and have children.

Repeat this over and over again for thousands of years and you have us today.

Our emotional brain is always on and you cannot switch it off, which is why you jump during a scary scene in a horror movie (even though you know it is not real).

Our brain developed over thousands of years, as we evolved from basic animals into smarter thinking human beings. But the most fascinating thing is that we are still controlled by our most basic emotional brain.

So you should stop trying to appeal to people’s executive brains by trying to convince them with logic and rational arguments that they should make more sustainable choices by ‘educating’ people on the why and how of sustainability.

So rule #1 is to think like a caveman or cavewoman and communicate with peoples’ ancient brains by linking sustainable choices to emotional drivers

Rule #2 – Don’t Mention the C-Words!

Ok, let’s get this out of the way.  If you want to more people to “buy-in” to your sustainability project, initiative, or buy your sustainable product or service then don’t mention the c-words – you know climate, carbon, corporate social responsibility, climate catastrophe. Also don’t mention the other taboo words like eco, green, environmentally friendly.

The reason is that as humans evolved we learnt the importance of being in a tribe. It provided safety, you had a better chance of finding a partner, and you could work together to create wealth. Today modern tribes are built around a range of things like sports and values, including people’s values when it comes to the environment.

When it comes to sustainability, many people still think this means you need to live in a commune, wear a tie-dye shirt, grow dreadlocks, live in a hay bale house with a rammed earth floor. So, if you try to get people to buy-in by talking just about climate, carbon, eco, green, then people who are not driven by sustainability will think, “That doesn’t sound like my tribe, so this thing, well, it’s not for me,” and they wont give you  a chance regardless of how good your idea is.

So how should you get people to buy-in to your initiative? The answer is deceptively simple – you give them what they want. Whilst that probably sounds like the most useless piece of advice you have ever received just stick with me for a moment.

Whomever you are trying to influence will only buy into your initiative product or service if it solves a pressing need or problem for them – it comes down to the “what’s in it for me” effect.

Therefore you need to identify the benefits your sustainable product or service offers that solves this pressing need or problem. Often times this will not relate to the sustainability features of your product.

Now one quick clarification on this rule – if your target audience is strongly motivated by environmental drivers then you don’t need to stick to this rule and you can talk about climate change and carbon all day long.

But the reality, is that the majority of people do not fit into this category and don’t have sustainability high up on their hierarchy of needs and so you should apply this rule until you know otherwise.

How to get more “buy-in”

Let me explain by giving you an example and lets pick something that would be difficult to get someone to consider.

Imagine you are trying to convince a friend (who is a parent with 2 young children) to improve the energy efficiency of their home by installing some doors to zone the home so that they can close off different spaces and save energy by only heating and cooling small spaces rather than the whole house.

Most sustainability people would probably talk about how much energy you could save, describe the concept of heat transfer through a home, get excited about the carbon savings … by now your friend is probably falling asleep with boredom and looking for a way to escape.

Rule #3 – WIIFM (What’s in it for me)

Rather than have your friend try to avoid you for the next month so she never has to hear about doors and zoning ever again let’s try an exercise to uncover a benefit that would interest her.

The “so what?” exercise

When trying to uncover benefits that might interest someone in your sustainability thing – first list out all the features of your sustainability initiative, then for each feature simply ask the question “so what?” to uncover the benefits – what does that feature mean for your customers life? what can they do that they couldn’t do before using your product?

Let’s go back to our door and zoning example – the feature was an internal door that closed off particular rooms. “So what” does that mean? It means you can create private spaces in the home, which means it is easier to work from home, it can also reduce the noise in different spaces so you can watch TV without disturbing others, or the kids can make noise with their friends so you can join that video conference without having to mute and then forget to unmute and talk to yourself for five minutes and so on.

Now pick the most valuable benefit that solves the biggest, most frustrating, or most important need and lead your conversation with that.

Putting it into practice

We created the following video to educate people about why they should zone their home to reduce their energy consumption.  In designing the video we did the “so what?” exercise to develop the concept. Now watch the video where we talk about zoning your home by focusing on a specific benefit first and include the energy efficiency part as a bonus at the end.

Whilst we had a bit of fun making this video, the reason it works and is engaging is because we focussed on a benefit that would resonate with any parent.  In this video we focused on the benefit that any parent with young children would highly prize and that is being able to get some peace and quiet away from the kids. And finally, energy efficiency was positioned as a bonus at the end but it wouldn’t be the main reason your friend would “buy-in” to the idea.

Conclusion

Whether you are selling energy auditing, sustainable architecture, net zero housing, sustainable packaging or solar panels or trying to get the CFO to approve a budget or you just want the kids to turn off the lights when they leave a room make sure you are appealing to emotionnal drivers, don’t assume they are motivated by sustainability, and use the “so what?” exercise to identify something that will motivate them to act.

Want to unleash your influence and persuasion superpowers to get more buy-in for your sustainability initiatives?

Yes?  Then you need to take our “Influence and Persuasion for Sustainability Professionals” online course.

When you take this course, you’ll:

• Learn why people aren’t engaging with your sustainability initiative and what you can do about it
• Get five talking points for every conversation so you can influence the outcome
• Learn how to overcome resistance, objections, and common barriers to sustainable change
• Be able to stop being frustrated at the slow pace of change and start to make real progress

Check out details below.