The New Language of Sustainability
At home the subject of sustainability drifts in and out. My husband runs a sustainability tech start up, so it naturally spills over into our evenings and weekends. Sometimes I am all ears, nodding along enthusiastically, sometimes I am half listening while untangling a pile of socks, but what always strikes me is how ordinary it feels now. Five years ago the word still carried the weight of a campaign slogan, something reserved for conferences or glossy brochures. These days it slips easily into the middle of a Tuesday night conversation about dinner or school runs. Part of the reason this feels so close to home is that many of the brands we work with put sustainability at the centre of what they do.
It is not only the language in our house that has changed. Getty Images’ VisualGPS research shows that the pictures we use to talk about sustainability have shifted too. Those neat little icons that once stood in for it, the green leaf, the drop of water, the lonely polar bear floating away, have begun to feel strangely hollow. People are asking for something closer to real life, something that shows actual progress being made rather than a polished symbol standing in for it.
goodbye sunset through the trees….
The images that feel most convincing are the ones that combine the big with the small. A solar farm seen from above is impressive, but it carries more weight when you also see someone crouched down repairing a single panel. A new product design makes more sense when you see it in a real kitchen with the crumbs and the clutter, rather than on a studio plinth. These kinds of pictures bring the idea down to earth, literally, because they show the work in motion rather than hinting at it in theory.
Of course there is a hesitation creeping in too. More and more companies choose to keep quiet for fear of criticism, a tendency that has been given its own name: greenhushing. The trouble is that vagueness does not earn trust. People are quick to doubt lofty claims and just as quick to sense when an image is too convenient. What they look for instead is honesty, even if the story is a bit rough around the edges.
The reassuring thing is that this new visual language feels more human. It does not need flawless symbols or manicured perfection. It thrives on detail, context, and real people doing real work. Progress is shown in steps, not leaps. And if that feels daunting, there is comfort in the fact that the best imagery now looks very much like life itself, a little messy, sometimes improvised, but moving forward all the same.