Denise Baden
Stories both reflect and influence our values and behaviours. How characters behave, what they think and do and feel, and importantly, what they don’t think about or don’t bother doing, sets the cultural landscape against which we judge our own actions and those of others. This makes fictional role models the ultimate influencers – both for good and for bad. I highlight this in a project I did with Bafta aimed at raising awareness of the importance of characters as influencers, and of the connection between consumption habits and their environmental impacts. Our research showed that using humour, and including both positive and negative examples, worked well to engage people without leading to a defensive response.
Many writers of climate and ecological fiction focus on changing attitudes and beliefs, in the hope that this will lead to behaviour change. But decades of psychological research indicate that focussing on social norms and feelings of agency are far more effective in inspiring pro-environmental behaviours. My study, which explored readers’ responses to climate-themed short stories, found that solution-focused stories were significantly more likely to lead to positive environmental intentions than those with a catastrophic focus. While dystopic stories about the disastrous consequences of climate inaction motivated some, just as many were put off, exhibiting responses such as avoidance, anxiety, and passive despair. Psychological studies of fear also suggest that trying to ‘scare people green’ can sometimes backfire and lead to blaming or marginalising the innocent.
Inspired by findings like these, in 2018 I founded the Green Stories project, which has run 20 free competitions resulting in 15 publications. Alongside this, I founded Habitat Press to publish fiction that emerged from the project. All the publications either embedded easily-applied sustainable behaviours in genre fiction aimed at mainstream readers (not just greenies), presented positive visions of what a sustainable society might look like if we did it well, or promoted existing green alternatives that readers may not have considered.
For example, Visco, by David Fell, which won the 2020 Green Stories prize, imagines a giant music festival which allows free access to those who need care and their carers. The festival is a great success and the festival-goers enjoy it so much that none of them wants to go home. So they don’t – and a new kind of society emerges. David Fell brings to this novel all the knowledge he has gained in his years working as a sustainability consultant, and packages it with engaging characters and an exciting plot.
Another example is my own first novel, Habitat Man. A man takes early retirement to help make people’s gardens wildlife friendly. In the process, he falls in love and digs up a body. The cosy mystery, romance and comedy make the story accessible to mainstream readers, but it has also inspired behaviour change. A survey of 50 readers one-month after finishing the book revealed that 98% reported a change in their attitudes and 60% adopted at least one green alternative. The discovery of a dead body, for example, enabled me to include a natural burial, and several readers wrote in saying it had inspired them to change their will. Most hadn’t realised the harmful environmental impacts of traditional burials.
In our anthology, No More Fairy Tales: Stories to Save Our Planet, climate solutions are at the heart of each story. Some showcase policies we can campaign for, but others like ‘Mostly for You’ about a domestic cleaner, show how we can transform our own homes and businesses into sustainable enterprises that nourish our planet rather than poisoning it. Habitat Press’s latest book, Dirt, by Laura Baggaley, is a young adult novella set in the near future, in which regenerative farming forms the backdrop to a future-set eco-romance – pitting industrial agriculture against sustainable food production. It’s a story that shows how closer community ties and knowledge-sharing can transform our lives from the ground up, and the conversations that can help us achieve this.
Green Stories is running a new competition on the theme of ‘epiphanies’ later in 2025: a flash fiction competition for stories that capture a moment of epiphany that changes the character’s attitude or behaviour for the greener. You can read about it here.
If we can secure sponsorship, we hope to follow this with a short film competition where filmmakers can select from a list of the best stories to create a short film. We hope that these linked competitions will meet the two key aims of Green Stories: focusing on solutions rather than problems, and using formats, such as very short videos, that will reach mainstream audiences.
Denise Baden is a Professor of Sustainable Practice at the University of Southampton. She’s listed on the Forbes list of Climate Leaders Changing the Film and TV industry. A TV adaptation of her play ‘Murder in the Citizens’ Jury’ was a winner of the 2024 Writing Climate Pitchfest and is being published as a novel.
Call to action
Whatever your area of interest or expertise, take that bit of the jigsaw and imagine what a truly regenerative, sustainable approach would look like. Then share it! A novel, play, poem, song, talk, podcast or workshop. And sign up to our Green Stories website so you’re informed about our next competition later this year. The website also provides free resources to help writers embed pro-environmental behaviours and climate solutions in their stories.
If you know any theatre companies, directors, Am-dram groups or school/college theatre groups, let them know about the play. It’s currently royalty-free. You can see reviews, details and feedback here. Videos capturing the show are also available.