© Joel Petts, used under ‘fair use’

Last week, I hosted one of the three Mastermind Groups I have on the go just at the minute. We were discussing Sustainable transport and one delegate said “I’ve long be tempted to cycle to work, but it would take an extra half hour out of my day” to which my short reply was “but half an hour not at the gym.”

My longer answer was a personal anecdote: my partner cycles to and from the station every morning ahead of getting the train to Durham where she works. Unlike me, who enjoys working out, for her it is a bit a chore – unless she can embed it into her routine. 30 minutes of cycling several days a week fits the bill perfectly and, because it’s the standard way she starts and ends her commute, she doesn’t think of it as something special she must programme into her week at the expense of something else. It’s just normal.

This chimes with one of the main points from my green marketing and comms webinar I gave on Wednesday: push multiple benefits. Electric cars may cost more than ICE, but they cost less to run, have lower maintenance costs and often higher performance. Water-based wall paints don’t stink your house out for days after you redecorate. A wind turbine doesn’t pollute the air, or stain your buildings/washing like a coal fired power plant. Cycling gets you fit and boosts mental health; sitting in a car in a queue of traffic doesn’t do much for either.

The Joel Petts ‘What if it’s a big hoax’ cartoon (above) has become something of a cliché in Sustainability circles, but I’d argue it has hidden depths. If you are struggling to persuade people that an invisible gas which forms a tiny amount of the atmosphere actually regulates global temperature, don’t flog a dead horse. Instead, pick another item from the list on the Powerpoint slide behind the speaker that does resonate with them. I call this Green Jujitsu – find the sweetspot between the interests of your audience and Sustainability and start there.