Seven lessons from 25 years of telling climate stories

It’s a rare opportunity to combine personal passion with your day job. For me, that’s come in the form of our work with climate tech and energy companies. 

One of the most fulfilling parts of what we do is shining a light on the companies and ideas making a difference. When it comes to climate, we’ve helped build brands around companies turning waste to fuel, sucking carbon pollution out of the sky, creating carbon-free hydrogen from seawater, and unleashing the next innovations in nuclear power. 

A milestone in LaunchSquad’s climate tech journey was energy efficiency software pioneer Opower hiring us shortly after its 2014 IPO to broaden its positioning from “climate tech” to a technological innovator. We were proud to play a role in the company’s stellar public comms and earned media presence over a two-year period culminating in its acquisition by Oracle. In those two years, we told data-driven stories like which direction solar panels should be facing, how much it costs to charge an iPhone, and many others along the way. 

Since partnering with Opower, we’ve worked with dozens of companies across climate, energy, and sustainability. We had the privilege of crafting and landing stories about cleantech innovation before there was even a cleantech market. We had a front-row seat during the first cleantech bubble in the mid-2000s, the rise of Climate Tech 2.0 in the last decade, and the reindustrialization effort that is underway now.

While innovations evolve, core aspects of storytelling never change. With that in mind, here are a few things we’ve learned about telling stories of innovation in climate tech and energy—plus some thoughts on where things are headed next.

1. Know your audience.

It’s easy to think there’s a centralized audience to reach in the climate and energy world, but in reality, there’s a diverse range of overlapping stakeholders, requiring a nuanced approach to messaging. To succeed and scale, climate tech communicators must craft messages capable of inspiring audiences with varying motivations— from policymakers and investors to communities and end consumers. To do this well, the first step is to listen to the communities you’re operating within and understand competing motivations and priorities.

2. Language matters in this market. And it evolves fast.

The market has significantly changed in the last 15 years. In just the last four, U.S. climate policy has ping ponged between investment and retrenchment, leading to a recent pivot to national security. Surging demand for electricity, driven by the rise of AI, is creating an unrelenting need for power among tech companies. When describing conversations about building data centers with hyperscalers, BlackRock Chairman Larry Fink said, "About four years ago, they would say 'If we're building a data center, it must be with renewables. About two years ago, they said, 'We prefer renewables.' And today, they care about power." Companies selling clean energy need to focus first and foremost on the availability of cheap energy today, and align that with longer-term decarbonization goals, a difficult needle to thread when telling their story. 

3. Climate stories demand tangible impact.

Many promising climate technologies exist, but if a company can't show how it is making an actual impact—whether by meeting customer needs, scaling commercial operations, or delivering measurable outcomes—it risks being dismissed as vaporware or greenwashing. 

Companies putting shovels in the ground to build local projects need to show up with intentionality in those communities. They need to listen to local concerns and build real relationships based on mutual understanding. Climeworks is an example of a company doing this well. This article goes deep on how they worked to build trust and navigate local concerns about a carbon removal project in a small Louisiana town.  

4. It’s about the product. And economics.

For climate-friendly solutions to scale, they have to deliver a better product than the alternative. This means being cost-comparative with existing solutions. The green premium is dead. Customers will not choose a more expensive solution just because it’s more sustainable or less carbon-intensive. 

As Generate Capital CEO Scott Jacobs said during NY Climate Week last year, “the energy transition is customer-driven and has always been. No investor makes it happen; no technologist makes it happen. Some policy makes it happen, but it’s almost entirely because some customer has a problem to solve, and they’re willing to pay to get it solved.”

5. Tell big-picture stories in relatable terms.

Big numbers can have a wow factor, but they don’t always stick. Clear, relatable metrics make a big difference. 

With Divert, we took the massive amount of food waste they diverted from landfills and translated it into something more tangible. Their Turlock, CA, facility alone offsets 23,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually. We likened the reduction to taking nearly 5,000 gas-powered cars off the road. Framing the difference in consumer terms enabled us to convey the impact in a relatable way to Divert’s key audiences, unlock conversations with reporters, and drive coverage about the company’s solutions. 

6. Make climate stories personal. Meet people where they are. 

Finding ways to share real experiences with climate impacts can help tell a broader narrative. 

Pique Action, a media company focused on telling positive stories about climate solutions, does this very effectively in its NextNow series, which profiles founders and teams that offer climate solutions. For example, take their video story on 75F, a company using machine learning and cloud computing to tackle the issue of CO2 emissions from commercial buildings. In a short three minutes, the clip turns what could have been a highly technical, dry explanation of HVAC transformation into a beautifully shot, human-centric narrative told in the voice of the person at its center. 

Climate change has multi-layered impacts that touch all areas of society. Meeting audiences where they are can cut through societal tensions and open up productive dialogue. Dr. Katharine Hayhoe, a prominent climate scientist, has spoken about the intersection of her scientific work and her Christian faith—and why she takes the approach of leading with love in conversations with her church in Texas. 

7. Climate stories can be funny (seriously).

Humor is a powerful tool to engage audiences. Yellow Dot Studios mixes social commentary, satire, and celebrity to make climate stories relatable. Created by Academy Award-winning director/writer/producer/actor Adam McKay and longtime production partner Staci Roberts-Steele, their videos feature high-profile comedians and actors to “raise awareness and mobilize action” with memorable and scientifically accurate content. Take, for example, this video featuring Tim Robinson from last year. Robinson’s character helps a climate scientist make his “mean bad facts” about climate change more palatable to audiences—to date, it’s racked up nearly 1.5M views. 

At the end of the day, climate and energy stories come down to connection, clarity, and adaptability. 

Connect the dots—emotionally and intellectually. People have to care in order to spend their money or align with a brand, whether they’re an enterprise buyer at a massive multinational or an individual homeowner. And they won’t care unless they feel connected to the brands, products, and solutions, whether emotionally as a human or as a business-minded professional.

Be clear about the impact and your vision for getting there. Never stop educating, and don’t miss out on making connections by getting lost in the weeds.

Adapt as the world evolves around us. The economy, political landscape, consumer trends, and even our physical environment are changing every single day. The storytellers and visionaries who succeed will be the ones who find the unique path for their story without losing sight of what makes them different.