In their book 'Made to Stick [1]', the Heath brothers introduce an example in which an American health institute finds that 'one bag of popcorn contains 37 grams of saturated fat'. To communicate this story, they develop a message 'one bag of popcorn is equivalent to a full day of unhealthy eating'. Another message that the institute might have said is 'a bag of popcorn contains as much Vitamin J as 71 pounds of broccoli', a declaration which is as meaningful as it is correct.
Viewing these statements from a distance, now let's now reconsider popular messages in the energy industry, for example about renewable energy, zero-energy houses or carbon neutrality:
- A 1.5MW wind turbine generates electricity for a 1000 families (meaning the electricity produced over a year equals the electricity consumption of 1000 average homes)
- A 'carbon-neutral' conference handed out compact fluorescent lamps to its participants. The 250 kg of CO2 that the lamp will save over its lifetime offsets the emissions for travelling to the conference
- A zero-energy home generates as much electricity over a year as it consumes
We can easily see that we'll have to live with these kinds of messages for a while, and that lots of creative communications can be developed.