Cinereach believes that sustainability is one of the most paramount issues where narrative change requires a shift. Storytelling about the climate crisis is increasing across film and other media, but we want to learn more about how those stories can reach a wider audience, and how they can be told as effectively and equitably as possible. By talking with people who understand the climate crisis on a deep and often personal level, we hoped to gain greater insight into how to develop, produce, and distribute climate stories that people will love, and have the power to change the world.

We synthesized the information gathered from those conversations and created narrative resources to aid creatives in producing engaging and effective storytelling. Among those insights were 5 key points to highlight in stories about the climate crisis:

1. Adaptation: Showing audiences how people, systems, and communities adapt to changing environments helps counteract a sense of hopelessness and powerlessness.
2. Time: Effective climate stories balance the issue’s complex temporal dimensions, simultaneously illustrating the urgency while contextualizing historical impacts—bolstered by environmental history and indigenous knowledge—and long-term consequences. 
3. The role of institutions: Storytelling can improve the understanding of the multifaceted role of institutions—including governments, corporations, scientific entities, and social organizations—and how they influence policy decisions, resource allocation, and public perceptions.
4. Shifting values: By depicting shifting values in storytelling we can provide more honest, authentic, and culturally rooted portrayals in how individuals connect to the vastness of life on Earth and what belief systems motivate them in their actions.
5. Individualism v. Collectivism: Finding a balance between individualism and collectivism in a story recognizes the significance of personal actions alongside the necessity for collective efforts at community, national, and global levels.

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