WEBVTT

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Let me start by asking you a question.

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Imagine you decided to buy a new T-shirt

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so you drive to your favorite shop,

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you look at the choice they offer,

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and you narrow it down to two T-shirts

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that you find more or less equally cool.

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You hold them in your hands,

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and you know that one of them
comes from a company

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that is known for very decent
working conditions in the production.

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No child labor, fair wages.

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You know it doesn't include
toxic chemicals for the coloring,

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and it's made with organic cotton.

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The T-shirt in the other hand,

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as you remember
from the media, a week before,

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comes from a brand quite notorious

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for so-called "sweat shop"
working conditions.

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So, maybe child labor,

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certainly, no fair wages,

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full of toxic chemicals, and not organic.

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As I told you, you like them
more or less the same.

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Who of you would, in that situation,

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pick the more responsible T-shirt?

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Please raise your hand.

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OK.

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That's a majority.

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Now think about the last time
you bought a T-shirt.

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Did you take into consideration

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the social and environmental aspects
of your decision?

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Did you think about

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the social and environmental performance
of the brands behind the T-shirt?

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Or the last time you bought
a computer, or a smartphone?

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Did you check for
the human rights conditions

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in the production of these products?

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Probably not.

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What you have here is
the so-called "intention-behavior gap."

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We have all the best intentions,

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but when it comes
to the real decision making,

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we forget about it,

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or we have many reasons
why in that moment we cannot do it.

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What drives that gap?

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So why does it exist?

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Why do we so often fail
to do what we intend to do

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when it comes to sustainability?

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You might think
it has to do with information.

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So if we just would know
about all these things,

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then we would make better decisions,

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more informed, more responsible
decisions as consumers.

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Think about April 2013,

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when this garment factory
collapsed in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

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You have seen these pictures on the news.

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You might even recall
some of the brand names.

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Brands being produced there.

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You might even have bought
these brands before or afterwards.

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One year earlier,

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you certainly heard of the story
about the workers at Foxconn,

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the factory producing
smartphones and computers,

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jumping from the roofs of the factory

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because of the desperation
for their working conditions.

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You all know that you might be
the last generation eating tuna fish.

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You have heard all these stories
about child labor and slave labor

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in chocolate, in sugar, in gold,
in coltan, you name it.

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If you've never heard
about all these things,

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you've probably spent
the last 20 years on an island,

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like Robinson Crusoe.

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So information is not the problem.
Information is not the problem.

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We are very good in shifting
the blame somewhere else

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and rationalising
our own unsustainable decisions.

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We shift the blame on the corporations.
We say it's about production problems.

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So we frame it
as a problem of production.

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We ask corporations
to change their behavior.

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There's some truth in that as well,

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but that's only part of the story

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because basically,
the sustainability problems

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that we face today
are problems of our way of life.

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We want more stuff,

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at an ever higher speed
and an ever lower price.

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So we are part of the problem.

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It's not just about improving
the current production conditions,

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it's also about changing
the culture of consumption.

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So it's not about information.

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What is it that explains this gap
between intentions and behavior?

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Most of the time, when we make
decisions as consumers,

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we do so in an automatic way,
we cruise on auto-pilot.

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We act without thinking.
It's just routine decisions.

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It's deeply embedded,
taken-for-granted habits

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that drive our behavior.

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Just think about the last time

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you tried not to check emails
on your smartphone.

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You probably failed.

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Habits can be stronger than reason.

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So if you want to make
consumption more sustainable,

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we have to reprogram habits.

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You must imagine a habit like an iceberg.

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What you can see on the surface
is the behavior.

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What you cannot see under the water
are the values and beliefs

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that drive that behavior.

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So if you want to change someone's habit,

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which is not easy,

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you can either
directly target the behavior,

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let's assume we would try
to get rid of the habit of smoking,

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so we can we make it illegal
to smoke in public places.

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You directly target the behavior.

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Or you can target the values
and beliefs under the water

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that drive the behavior
in the first place,

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which is much more difficult,

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but which creates much profounder changes.

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How do we normally speak
to these values and beliefs?

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We speak to these values and beliefs
in our society through stories.

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Stories shape, and reinforce,
and break habits.

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Just think about
how children love fairy-tales,

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how we transport values
and beliefs through fairy-tales.

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Think about how the old
ancient Greek and Roman societies

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were guided by strong mythologies,

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highly complex stories that guided
the behavior of people in everyday life.

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If you want to stop smoking,
for instance, to go back to that story,

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you can either make it illegal
in public places,

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or you can reprogram
the beliefs and values

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that drive that behavior.

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The tobacco industry is very good
in creating these stories.

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For teenagers, they create

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a story of coolness,
and risk, and adulthood.

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That's exactly what teenagers want.

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So they will smoke
as long as they believe it's cool,

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and it's promoting their growing up.

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For women, they used the story
of emancipation and sexiness.

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For poor people in Africa,

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they used the story
of the European prosperity,

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"You can reach it a little bit
if you start smoking."

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So if you want to change a habit,

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you have to find stories
that are stronger and more powerful

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than the stories that drive
the behavior in the first place.

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The problem
of the sustainability movement

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is that it has no stories to tell,

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no stories that are powerful enough
to break the power of the story

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that drives our consumption
in the first place.

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What is that story about?

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This is basically the story
of the 20th century consumer society.

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It is a story that grew over decades
and became stronger and stronger.

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It starts with the positive
outlook on the future.

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We believe in a bright future.

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We believe that technology leads us there.

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We put a man on the Moon.

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Technology will make
our production system ever more efficient,

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so we can produce more stuff
at higher speed and lower costs.

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We buy that stuff because by buying
stuff we become someone,

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we belong somewhere,
we increase our happiness.

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So the story that drives our behavior

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is the story that makes a link
between technological progress,

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economic efficiency, growth,
consumption, and happiness.

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And you feel the happiness
in the immediate gratification,

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when you bought
the T-shirt, for instance.

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In recent years,

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this story has received
a bit of competition.

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There's another story going around,

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and this is basically the story
about the side effects of the first story.

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We learn that when we consume more,

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we can increase our happiness
only to a certain degree,

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then it falls down.

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It's a U-shape; a negative
U-shape, a curve.

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negative U shape, a curve.

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We smoke, we get cancer.
We eat, we get diabetes.

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We buy stuff all the time,
we feel empty and get depressed.

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On the level of society we learn

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all these consumption decisions aggregate

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in large scale environmental problems.

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The forest disappears,
the ice is melting,

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and in a few decades,
probably Manhattan will be under water.

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There will be more migration,
more poverty, more wars, less water.

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This is actually
the post-vision of the future.

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It's an apocalyptic future.
It's a future that is dystopian.

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It's a story about
the collapse of the planet.

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So you have these two stories,

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the utopian story about your happiness,

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and the dystopian story
about the end of the world.

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Next time you go in a shop
and buy a T-shirt,

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you will hear two voices in your ear.

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One voice will tell you,
"why don't you buy both?"

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(Laughter)

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"You double your happiness."

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(Laughter)

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But you might start to doubt
about the evidence of that.

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So there's the other story,

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"Do you really need a T-shirt?"

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OK, if you need it, buy
the organic one. the fair one.

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...and did you come by bus?

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(Laughter)

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Did you switch off the light
when you left your house?

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If you did all these things,
you might save the planet.

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Saving the planet
by switching off the light?

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Two days ago,
I was walking through London,

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and there was a printing shop,

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which obviously used
some advanced green technology

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because in their window,

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they invited me to save
the planet with them.

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I didn't know that this planet will be
saved by a printing shop in London.

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And what I assume is
that these kind of stories

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are just an insult
to our minds, to our intelligence.

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We don't believe them.

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We don't believe
this strange causal link

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between our little decisions
and the apocalyptic future.

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So these stories are not credible.

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They don't speak to our minds.

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II they come in the negative form,
we are doomed, the planet is lost.

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They don't speak to our emotions,

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because they appeal to fear,
they give us no hope.

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But fear only drives behavior
when the threat is immediate.

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Manhattan will be under water
when I will be dead,

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and you as well.

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So this doesn't drive my behavior.

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This story is not strong enough

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to break the power
of the immediate happiness

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that I can get when I buy both T-shirts.

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We need different stories.

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We need stories that include ourselves.

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There are stories about our happiness
connected to the well-being of the planet,

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stories of our future,

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in which we are the actors
who make the decisions

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and feel the change.

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This might be a bit abstract

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so let me tell you a story
about such a story.

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I don't know how you would feel

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if you hear that in your neighbourhood
a new fast food restaurant is opening up.

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You might not even care,

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but this is a story about someone
who got really really angry

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when he heard that MacDonald's
was opening a new restaurant

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at the Spanish Steps in Rome;

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the Spanish Steps in Rome, at the heart
of the cultural heritage of Italy -

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fast food, the opposition
of what Italians are so proud of,

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their food.

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This guy was Carlo Pertini,

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and he channeled his anger

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by creating the slow food movement.

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The slow food movement
basically, is a movement

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that fights against this broad nexus

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of industrialized,
mechanical food production

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and mindless, unhealthy
food consumption,

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from the Monsantos to the MacDonald's.

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This movement was created
by Carlo Petrini

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because he believes
that we have to change the way we eat.

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We have to eat
local food, healthy food.

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We have to produce locally.

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We have to protect our biodiversity,
our cultural heritage.

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We have to recreate the link that is lost

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between the producer and the consumer.

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We have to educate consumers
and producers to change their habits.

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This story that started
as a little Italian episode

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has become a huge global movement,

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with more than 100,000 actors
in more than 150 countries.

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Why is this story so powerful?

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This story is so powerful
because we all can connect to it.

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You have concerns
about the health of your children,

00:14:33.201 --> 00:14:34.854
you can connect to it.

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You hate the growing influence
of multinationals on the way we eat,

00:14:41.473 --> 00:14:42.898
you can connect to it.

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You are a promoter of local traditions,

00:14:48.159 --> 00:14:49.686
you can connect to it.

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You want to preserve biodiversity,

00:14:53.821 --> 00:14:55.589
you can connect to it.

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You want to help poor farmers
somewhere in Latin America

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at the end of the supply chains
of our production system,

00:15:02.976 --> 00:15:04.738
you can connect to that story.

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We all can somehow connect to that story

00:15:07.442 --> 00:15:12.104
through our own beliefs
and values in that very moment.

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What started
as a very small Italian episode

00:15:17.083 --> 00:15:20.208
has turned into a trans-cultural movement,

00:15:20.211 --> 00:15:24.503
because it is a story
that speaks to everyone, potentially.

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So, the next time you speak
with your children

00:15:32.360 --> 00:15:36.408
about sustainability, ask yourself,
"What kind of story will I tell them?"

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And keep in mind

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it has to be a story about yourself,
and your children, and your future.

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When you are a manager, ask yourself,

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"How do I talk about sustainability
with my clients?"

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You probably in the past talked about

00:15:51.834 --> 00:15:54.513
the greatness of your engagement,

00:15:54.514 --> 00:15:56.288
your wonderful products.

00:15:56.289 --> 00:15:59.733
These are small stories
that will not change the world

00:15:59.734 --> 00:16:02.440
You need a great story
to which many people can connect,

00:16:02.441 --> 00:16:05.182
in many industries
and in many circumstances.

00:16:06.061 --> 00:16:10.085
When you are a teacher, ask yourself,
"How can I inspire my students?"

00:16:10.918 --> 00:16:16.293
As a journalist, your readers.
As a politician, your citizens.

00:16:17.392 --> 00:16:20.344
Yes, we need more technology
and better technology

00:16:20.345 --> 00:16:22.313
to improve the state of the world,

00:16:22.314 --> 00:16:25.410
but what we have underestimated so far

00:16:25.818 --> 00:16:29.120
is this amazing soft power
of storytelling.

00:16:29.125 --> 00:16:33.412
We're telling the wrong stories,
and we have to change that.

00:16:33.413 --> 00:16:34.673
Thank you.

00:16:34.674 --> 00:16:36.190
(Applause)