TCC #65 — I've changed my mind: 'risk management' might just save the climate movement
Maybe it's time for the climate movement to go full corporate
Hi folks,
Welcome back — finally — to another edition of The Climate Communicator. Between client work, moving to Australia (me), raising a toddler (Meg), and watching Trump dismantle everything good in sight (both of us), things have been a little hectic over at The Climate Hub.
But today we’re back and talking about how to talk about climate change when nobody wants to talk about climate change.
It’s not just the new US administration that wants to pretend that climate change doesn’t exist. Right now, so many other problems feel much more pressing than climate change. I don’t think this is a distortion: many problems are bigger — or certainly more immediate — than climate change.
I think climate communicators have largely failed to acknowledge this idea that climate change is just one problem among many. Much of the doom, gloom, and alarmist language coming from climate circles would have us believe that we’ll all be dead next year if we don’t make our websites carbon-friendly by tomorrow.
B2B circles, and financial institutions in particular, have managed to talk about climate change with more nuance. Sure, there’s a whole lot of greenwashing and grandstanding going on, but there’s also widespread recognition that climate change ultimately comes down to risk — in their case, a business risk.
I came down hard on corporate climate action as ‘risk management’ in a newsletter a few months ago. I was sick of seeing people labelled as human capital and our incredible planet described as a portfolio of environmental assets. I was tired of human rights tragedies framed as social risk and natural disasters expressed as threats to property rather than threats to human lives. It felt like all the humanity had been stripped out of what is still a deeply humanitarian issue.
But now, as we enter into this unique(ly disturbing) era, B2B climate tech marketers could do worse than to lean into risk management messaging. We don’t need to entirely strip the issue of its humanity in the process. It’s important that we remember that climate isn’t just a business risk. It’s also an environmental risk and a social justice risk, and though it may never become a true existential risk for humans at large, there are absolutely human lives at stake.
But when we, as B2B marketers, speak to our audience, who are under-resourced and overworked and need to constantly prove to CFOs and CEOs that climate is worth investing in, it might just be worth speaking in their language.
How to talk about climate change when no one cares
It’s on-the-nose (and maybe even dangerous) right now to talk about topics like social justice and climate change in corporate settings. Meg and I know many B2B climate tech marketers who see this as a concern: will demand for their products evaporate? Does anybody care about net zero anymore?
It’s scary, for sure. We probably will see less client-driven demand for climate solutions. But climate tech marketers still have one big card to play: climate is still a business risk (a risk that’s only getting bigger). Investors still screen for climate risk management — it’s seen as a proxy for good long-term business management.
This means that, as Meg said on LinkedIn the other day, climate tech marketers can finally “take off their activist hats and put on their B2B strategy goggles.” In 2025, we can leave the ‘save the planet’ messaging behind and go full corporate. Climate isn’t a radical, left-wing concern. It’s also a topic for the suits in the boardroom, the quarterly reports, and the five-year plans.
The more we can move the perception of ‘climate’ away from the realm of philanthropy and social justice — that is, as something we do out of the goodness of our hearts for the benefit of other people — the better off we’ll be. People (and companies) only have the capacity to think about philanthropy and social justice when their own lives (and business operations) are relatively comfortable. But our personal and professional are becoming less comfortable by the minute, and it’s getting harder to care about abstract problems when we have real ones keeping us up at night.
Risk management: the way forward?
Risk management might be the most convincing message climate tech has right now. Most companies aren’t keen to take in bold new action in this climate. They’re not quite so keen on “leading the transition” anymore. Now, the focus is on protecting what you’ve got. Safeguarding against losses. Avoiding worst-case scenarios. Staying in the game.
The tricky thing with risk management framing is that it doesn’t resonate with everyone. If you’ve never felt the pain of the unexpected before, it’s hard to get worked up about it.
My partner and I looked at a house the other day. We really liked it, but then we found out we couldn’t get insurance on it, because the flood risk was so high. I mentioned this to the agent, who rolled her eyes and told me that “it’s never flooded before, so I don’t know why the insurance companies are considering it a flood risk.”
That’s what risk is though: it’s everything you don’t know. Everything that hasn’t happened before, that you haven’t accounted for.
How should climate tech marketers position their products in this new era?
At the consumer level, climate messaging needs to be framed in economic terms — immediately. I wrote about this a while back and will probably talk more about it at a later date. At the B2B level, the imperative to frame products in business and economic terms has always been there. But we can get a bit more specific.
The challenge will be framing your product in terms that actually land — risk management, cost efficiency, operational visibility — without defaulting to doom-and-gloom, and without hanging your hat on weak and constantly changing scaffolding, like net-zero targets or the latest climate disclosure regulation to be proposed.
Too many companies are walking back their sustainability commitments as we speak. The grand targets are being exposed for what they always were: a marketing exercise. If your product pitch relies too heavily on specific regulations or long-term climate targets, it might be time to revisit it.
Instead, here’s what businesses are likely to care about right now:
Keeping costs down while the economy flails
Making supply chains more resilient in a world of tariffs, trade tension, and geopolitical drama
Avoiding big hits — financial, reputational, logistical — wherever they can
Good climate tech can help with all of this.
Decarbonisation = tighter grip on your operations = lower resource use.
Supply chain mapping = fewer surprises = better procurement decisions.
Physical climate risk = real, growing, and terrifying = people will pay to avoid it.
If your product helps with that last one — physical risk — lean into it. It’s more relatable than “transition risk,” which seems to fade into the background every time Trump tells a firefighter that “it’s gonna start getting colder” or a regulator backpedals.
As I mentioned above, risk management won’t resonate with everyone. To get ‘risk management’ to land for those who don’t seem to care, don’t zero in too hard on preparing for specific, worst-case scenarios.
Instead, frame products and solutions as ways to improve your position, even if the worst case doesn’t come to pass. Even if, for example, your customer doesn’t end up subject to a carbon tax, reducing their supply chain’s footprint will still bring a number of other business benefits.
This isn’t the time for airy, idealistic messaging. It’s time for clarity. For showing exactly how your product helps companies survive — and maybe even sharpen their edge — while everything else is in turmoil.
We’ve been urging climate tech marketers for a long time now to pull back the ambitious climate messaging and go harder on the business side. For the next four years (and hopefully no longer than that), this will matter more than ever.