To help solve issues (e.g. environmental), society has many tools — regulations and laws, agreements and conventions, investments and innovations, taxes and funds. Communications is a key tool. In fact, it´s almost always part of the solution.

We communicate to achieve communication goals related to those issues. We inform, explain, raise awareness, change perception or behaviour, engage, convince, persuade, argue, debate…

There are individuals, organizations and companies which commit acts with negative impacts, such as harming the environment, or marginalizing minorities of people. Some don’t make the links between their acts and the impacts. They are unaware. The first step is to use communications to raise their awareness. The process can often be slow, requiring continuous repetition and example. Farmers, for example, may not be aware of the negative impacts caused by the pesticides they use that drain into rivers.

Then there are those among us who do know, who have been made aware… but continue to commit the same acts anyway.

In 1989, Jessica Tandy became the oldest Oscar winner through her role in the movie Driving Miss Daisy. There’s a great scene where old Miss Daisy (not a stupid woman) is elegantly seated at a table at an event where Martin Luther King Jr. is speaking. All the chairs at the table are filled except for one next to her, because her friend cancelled at the last minute. Meanwhile, outside, her black chauffeur sits in her car, listening to Dr. King live on the radio, wishing he could be seeing him in person. Back inside, Miss Daisy watches Dr. King emphatically speak about those among us who are aware about deep white-black inequality, but who choose to do nothing — these are the ones that are truly to blame, not the ones who are uninformed — as she glances at the empty chair next to her.

These people need to be communicated to as well, and often. Because at some point, they will realize that what they are doing isn’t right, that they have the choice to change things for the better. Because the next step is change.

And of course, there are those of us who do know but just don’t care (yet), or who intentionally exploit and degrade nature for their own ends.

We need to make many changes. About how we discuss matters with each other. About how we produce and consume. About whether to opt for short-term quick fixes or long-term sustainable solutions.

One approach that can be used to change certain types of behavior is “denormalization”.

Communications helps us to reflect. It gives us the messages, information, stories and images to better understand what is happening to ourselves and our Earth. How are we the problem? What am I as an individual doing, or what is my company doing, that contributes to the problem? What will happen if we don´t change? What can be done to improve the situation?

Communications is also used to explain what a project or organization is doing, why and its results.