The power of storytelling in communicating circular economy: Crafting compelling communications to popularize circular economy and incentivise action among nonexperts

Abstract

Circular Economy (CE) is regarded as one of the promising solutions to sustainable future. However, CE is made upon multiple schools of thought and theories and frequently seen as a complex term with many definitions. This raises difficulties of communicating the term to nonexperts, who might understand CE on a simple level. Awareness raising and communication for general public is suggested as one of the interventions to accelerate the transition to the circular future. Storytelling is one of the effective ways to communicate complex and multidimensional terms and issues, which got interest in academia and science communication as well. Stories can provoke thinking, reflecting, and can be effective to influence people. However, human behaviour is complex to have an impact on. This master’s thesis explores CE students, as emerging experts, that have a transformative potential for the change through conversations they have with nonexperts and stories they tell around CE. If CE students dare to step in that area, this thesis attempts to support them in achieving some clarity and preparing them to tell effective stories that show the whole complex picture of CE term. This thesis covered the main research question: How can Circular Economy students, as emerging experts, craft compelling communications with the help of storytelling to popularise circular economy and incentivize action among nonexperts? After learning from literature review, interviewing experts from private sector and academia, and surveying CE students, steps on how to become a better storyteller were tested in two workshops. The data was sorted and analysed with the help of Affinity Diagramming and recommended steps were adjusted that designed into a toolkit for CE students. The toolkit provides steps, illustrated as a circular journey, that can prepare emerging CE experts to talk to general public by raising important questions.