In the current context of a permacrisis, environmental catastrophes, and political disruptions and demarcations on a global, national and local level, there is an urgent need for socio-ecological transformation and authentic sustainable development. 

However, as soon as the term "sustainability" comes up - in individual conversations, advertisement or on social meda - it irritates. It stimulates responses. It evokes a feeling of unsettledness and impatience.

Sustainability provokes us – as value it is asking for what is important and what and where do we want to be. And as an ethical principle, sustainability is asking what the right things are to do. 

And somehow sustainability comes along with the pressure to act, over the years successfully implanted in our minds through a plethora of communication campaigns and political discourses. By the same time, the sustainability story that is told carries a business- and progress-friendly narrative of growth, it is a “smooth” discourse compatible with the existing logic of corporate capitalism. 

What is missing is personal authorship and a belief in different, revolutionary endings of the sustainability story. For re-storying the sustainability story, we need to claim back authorship, integral thinking, and the creating of space for creativity and co-creation to transition the sustainability to a story of real transformation.

To engage in such processes, people need narrative agency. Narrative agency is the capacity of individuals and/or groups to create, shape, tell and control the stories about their own lives, experiences, or identities – again: as individuals, as groups, as organizations. Instead of having the sustainability story imposed on us by others – with foremost economic or political interests, supported by the media and societal institutions and dominant cultural discourses – we need to decide how the story is told, what matters in it and what meaning it carries.

The course will open up a space to reclaim narrative agency. We will collaboratively learn about the two most prevalent aspects of narrative agency: the ability to interpret existing sustainability communication and the competences to create your own story.

The course has the following learning goals:

Knowledge: Students should be able to identify and apply current knowledge of what communication of, about and for sustainability is.

Critical Thinking & Problem Solving: Students should be able to identify, research and analyze complex issues and dominating narratives related to sustainability and sustainable deevelopment.

Creativity & Communication: Students should be able to reflect on their own responsibility as communicators, the implications and impact of their own action, and their leadership knowledge and styles, and to assess ethical, environmental and sustainability considerations in social impact decision-making and related communication processes and practices.

 Thus, after successfully completing this course, you should be able to:

Please take into account WU's regulations for PI classes (maximum of 20% of class time can be missed). Active participation is required as part of your grading.

The course will be structured along two main workpackages:

Step 1: Growing the ability to interpret existing sustainability narratives and stories 

Lecture elements to convey KNOWLEDGE, ANALYTICAL LENSES WE NEED (sustainability communication, media literacy, sustainability narratives, framing)

Activities to challenge dominant narratives (ECOCULTURE JAMING)

Step 2: Gworing the ability to create new stories and alternative narratives

Lecture elements, conversations to develop your own voice, ability to speak, to be heard in contexts where stories are shared/constructed; exploring space and context

Training, storytelling skills, including context, perspective, plotting 

Participation mark (10 %)

Eco-culture jam (group assignment): 45 %

Sustainability story (individual assignment): 45 %

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Please have a look at this open source / book: CSR Communication and Cultures of Sustainability – CSR Communication and Cultures of Sustainability