As someone who works in communications, I’ve watched this all unfold with a growing sense of urgency, not just because it affects my work, but because it affects the work of the entire ecosystem, from startups trying to commercialize to scientists and innovators trying to solve our biggest planetary problems.

We often talk about climate solutions needing scale. But before they scale, they need visibility. They need resonance. They need the world to understand why they matter.

Communicators as Ecosystem Builders

Marketing and communications professionals in the climate space have always worn many hats: translator, storyteller, advocate, pressure-tester. But lately, I’ve started to see our role differently: we are infrastructure. The strength of the message can determine the strength of the movement.

In Israel, where I work with several climate tech companies, there is no lack of innovative ventures; startups are tackling everything from water quality and waste to sustainable food systems and energy efficiency. But too often, their stories don’t reach the audiences that matter.

Whether it’s a lack of media attention, limited investor familiarity, or messaging that doesn’t translate across markets, the result is the same: solutions that could make a global impact remain under the radar. Recent research highlights that communication barriers, including conflicting values and lack of emotional engagement, are among the biggest obstacles to climate action.

This is a stark reminder of how critical effective, strategic communications is for companies needing that break. We can’t assume the science will speak for itself. Our job is to help it connect.

Tell the Story Behind the Science and Tech

Technical breakthroughs are important. But if we don’t communicate the human stakes — if we can’t answer “why does this matter, now?” — then even the most brilliant solutions will get buried in white papers and pitch decks.

Take Amai Proteins, an Israeli innovator creating sweet proteins that offer a healthier alternative to sugar. On the surface, that’s a biochemistry story. But it’s also a public health story; excess sugar consumption is linked to rising rates of obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease, all of which disproportionately affect low-income communities and strain healthcare systems.

It’s a consumer behavior story, too. Shifting tastes and nutritional preferences are driving the food industry to rethink its ingredients, and “clean label” alternatives are in high demand.

Even RFK Jr., despite the controversy surrounding many of his opinions, is taking on food system reform, moving to eliminate dyes and other additives and expressing that he’d love to see sugar eliminated from the American diet.

And yes, it’s a climate resilience story. Sugarcane and sugar beet farming are resource-intensive crops that require large amounts of land, water, and fertilizer, all of which are vulnerable to climate disruptions. Replacing them with a low-footprint, precision-fermented protein could ease pressure on ecosystems and improve food system sustainability.

These are opportunities for communicators to widen the frame and show how innovations intersect with public values. That’s how a single ingredient becomes part of a bigger story.

Make Climate Action “Cool”

In a world drowning in doomscrolling, climate urgency isn’t enough. People want hope, and they want to feel like they’re part of something that’s not just necessary, but exciting.

We saw this with Tesla and the early days of the electric vehicle market. EVs didn’t catch on because people suddenly got worried about emissions; they caught on because someone made them desirable.

As marketers, we have the power to do the same for other sustainable technologies: to make algae cleanup, biodegradable packaging, or atmospheric water generation feel like the future, not a compromise.

Speak Across the Divide

Many of us are communicating in fragmented markets. Different regions, different priorities, different regulatory directions. But the best messaging finds common truths: Clean water. Job creation. Community resilience.

If you start the story with a universally accepted premise, you’ve created a foundation of trust from which to build.

FireDome, an Israeli startup inspired by the country’s Iron Dome missile defense system, offers a perfect example of this approach. FireDome has developed an AI-assisted solution to detect and suppress wildfires autonomously, addressing the increasing frequency and intensity of such events due to climate change — something we saw clearly in Israel last week.

FireDome’s story tightly aligns a climate solution with community benefits. Everyone can agree that defending against wildfires is a necessity to protect property and lives.

That’s because the impacts are clear. Last year’s wildfire, which raged through Southern California, left entire communities in ashes, dozens of people killed, over 150 thousand people displaced, and damages estimated between $250-$275 billion, according to AccuWeather.

The value of proactively defending against wildfires quickly becomes obvious. The alignment between technological outcomes and community values exemplifies how climate tech can build long-term momentum and break through with target audiences by highlighting these tangible benefits.

Building Communications into the Business Model

Startups often focus intensely on R&D, product-market fit, and fundraising — and rightly so. But communications can’t just be an add-on, revisited only when there’s “good news” to share.

If we believe climate solutions are essential, then we need to treat communications as essential, too –not an afterthought or a slide at the end of the pitch deck, but a foundational part of the company’s infrastructure.

Strategic communications, embedded early, does more than explain what a company does; it shapes how it’s understood by investors, partners, policymakers and the public.

The right narrative can open doors, build credibility, and help a startup punch above its weight. Because climate solutions don’t just need to work. They need to land. And that’s where strong, unifying, value-driven messaging makes all the difference.

The post Why Israel’s Brilliant Climate Solutions Are Still Invisible appeared first on Medika Life.

We’re faced with a tilted Supreme Court that rolled back decades of critical social justice, medical, and environmental protection. Our politics are paralyzed by inaction.  One political party seeks to strangle American democracy; the other is seemingly incapable of responding adequately to the magnitude of the danger facing government.

Surrounded by this kind of negativity, perhaps despair and hopelessness are reasonable reactions. How can we hope to effect positive change and confront the threats to our vision for a better future in this environment?  I’m here to tell you that there is reason for optimism.

Even though circumstances appear dire, we’re starting to see leadership from a rather unlikely hero: Corporate America. Many companies are pivoting their positioning on corporate purpose to champion solutions for the most pressing concerns we face. They define their mission in terms of profit, purpose and social impact.

As communications professionals, we’re the lynchpin that helps them construct a strategy and build campaigns that can move the needle in meaningful ways, and now more than ever it’s critical that we get it right.

Here are four ways we can do just that:

1. Be Genuine about Corporate Culture

Any effective communications strategy around protecting the environment and supporting social justice causes must demonstrate that the commitment is real – that it comes directly from the C-Suite and Board and is ingrained in the corporate culture. The effort is doomed from the start if senior leadership isn’t fully bought in.

We’re seeing that corporations are increasingly defining their brand around sustainability and promoting their commitment to the environment, corporate social responsibility, and making a positive difference in the world. They tout ESG metrics as evidence and for many organizations, it’s genuine and indicative of a culture shift from top to bottom. For others, however, they’re just trying to check a box because they feel pressure from the market or shareholders. That’s when companies get into trouble.

Stakeholders, both internal and external, tend to see through the rhetoric and recognize it has no substance—this is devastating for the health of an organization. If employees and customers don’t believe that senior leaders are invested and genuine in sustainability principles, they won’t embrace any initiatives that get rolled out.

The modern workforce increasingly sees these efforts as critical factors when choosing who to work for. A study published in the Harvard Business Review found that 9 out of 10 American professionals surveyed across 26 industries would accept lower lifetime earnings in exchange for greater meaning at work. Gone are the days when salary was the only differentiator between prospective employers—meaningful action on social issues matters.

In fact, New York University’s Stern Center for Sustainable Business finds that good sustainability programs yield millions in benefits, both in financial and less concrete terms. Their Return on Sustainability Investment (ROSI) metric identifies nine drivers of financial performance that can improve with good sustainability strategies:

• Innovation
• Operational Efficiency
• Sales and Marketing
• Customer Loyalty
• Risk Management
• Employee Relations
• Supplier Relations
• Media Relations
• Stakeholder Engagement

Notice anything about that list? It includes every aspect of business operations. Clearly, focusing on sustainability is no longer a “nice to have”; it’s a sound business strategy and a story worth telling.

2. Transparency and Candor

I learned early on that the first rule of good media and public relations is “never, ever lie”. Communications professionals must ensure that ESG reporting is transparent and candid and as the volume of companies doing this kind of reporting increases it only becomes more important.

There isn’t a standard set of metrics for ESG, so it can get confusing when companies report on progress differently. Regardless of the metrics, they must be clearly articulated and independently verifiable. Investors, consumers, competitors, and even the company’s employees will look at the report. Even more scrutiny gets leveled on publicly traded companies. Inaccurate or incomplete reporting can have serious consequences, both in the court of public opinion and at the hands of enforcement agencies like the SEC, particularly as they move to finalize formal disclosure rules.

I’ve heard arguments from some that don’t want to report ESG performance unless mandated for this very reason. While I understand that inclination, even a caveated and qualified report is better than nothing. Every company starts somewhere, and if you’re only looking at a few metrics in your first report, that’s perfectly acceptable. However, the same rules apply – be authentic. It can’t just be a marketing gimmick.

Another concern I hear is around negative legacy issues in an organization’s history. Maybe that’s a less-than-stellar record on environmental issues or problematic past hiring and promotion practices. The best policy is to acknowledge past sins and focus on the future.

As communicators, we can help organizations find the middle ground between risk-averse executives or lawyers (speaking as an attorney who has served in both State and Federal government positions) who might be hesitant to say anything at all and marketers whose enthusiasm to convert sales might lead them to overstate the company’s action. We can help develop messaging to show how corporations have turned the corner and embraced a business philosophy and culture centered on doing good.

3. Finding the Right Message and Messenger

It’s not enough to have a compelling narrative. The person delivering the message needs to be equally attention-grabbing. Recent efforts to change behavior in response to the global pandemic and climate change are instructive on this point.

First, on climate change:

A study out of Great Britain looked at public engagement on climate change post-Brexit, focusing on those who identified themselves as being right-of-center politically. Participants appreciated an upbeat, positive tone around a clean energy future, but they didn’t respond well to absolutes: “we can have a 100% clean energy future”, for example. Messaging that indicated the need for a dramatic behavior change was more challenging for them to embrace.

The core values of the focus group included a sense of fairness, protecting their families, helping others, and living a good life. Messaging consistent with those values was more likely to be well-received.

This is true of most people across the political and ideological spectrum. They’re not as likely to embrace action to address climate change if they’re told they must give up their ICE cars entirely. They’re more likely to respond when given options: drive a more fuel-efficient or electric vehicle. They’ll take action to prevent illness in their children stemming from carbon emissions, but don’t mobilize based on academic discussions and data around rising temperatures and the polar ice caps.

Second, on the pandemic:

During the early stages of the pandemic, we heard from politicians, media personalities, and scientists. Most of them white men. They were disseminating highly scientific and granular data combined with doom and gloom warnings on the dangers of the virus and the need for social isolation and vaccination. Vaccination rates stayed well below 50% and COVID rates continued to rise.

We changed our messengers and got different results, recognizing that not all audiences respond to the same message in the same way. We began to tailor messaging to the audience and deliver it through messengers they connected with. Professional athletes, country music stars, clergy, and social media influencers did their part to communicate with people who listened to them. The result was progress. The lesson is that we can win over even the most skeptical listener with positivity and respect instead of domineering and demeaning.

4. Actions Speak Louder Than Words

To borrow a phrase from Nike, “Just Do It.”

Talk is cheap. To see real positive change requires action, one company at a time, one community at a time. Action is contagious. When one organization starts making an impact, others tend to follow. Those who act get the best talent to join, develop innovative products, attract the most desirable investors, and achieve the best financial results. Just getting started towards making a difference can inspire others to follow and when they do, we can change the world: save the planet, champion diversity, and achieve social justice.

As Margaret Mead put it, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

The post Communication: The Missing Link Between Vision and Progress on Environment and Social Responsibility Priorities appeared first on Medika Life.

Relying on intellect and knowledge, we embrace science and molecules that can be patented, tested, peer-reviewed and approved by third-party sources. However, as I look at the narratives of those who live and those that die — the people we seek to help and heal — I see within health information and innovation and the provider approach chinks in our armor. I see the too often-untapped human element that transforms marvelous medicines into people’s survival miracles. I see something missing from within the drug research, discovery and review process. I see that medical records remain challenging for professionals and patients to access and apply. I see how thoughtful communication can be used to create hope and avoid hype.

Communication defines how innovation can bring hope to humanity. Hope remains one of the most under-appreciated elements in the patient-treatment process.

I was a team lead when Hoffmann-La Roche introduced the first biologics for the treatment of cancer — alpha interferon. The launch activities included a New York City media briefing. The speaker line-up included the best and the brightest researchers in the biopharma oncology field — including Dr. Jerry Groopman, the now Dina and Raphael Recanati Chair of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Chief of Experimental Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Groopman is an outstanding scientist who has grappled for years with the role “hope” plays in healing.

Through the years, I have revisited Groopman’s outstanding volume, The Anatomy of Hope — How People Prevail in the Face of Illness. The book recounts his journey into medicine. The challenges physicians face as they look into the stares of people they treat with a life-threatening illness and chronic disease. The physician’s hunger for information and how the “ideology of the right to know,” can also suffocate patient hope. It’s the story of a great physician/scientist trying to balance his passion for the lab and patient care, with the universe we cannot see or touch.

“I understand hope as an emotion made up of two parts: a cognitive part and an effective part. When we hope for something, we employ, to some degree, our cognition, marshaling information and data relevant to a desired future event. If…you are suffering with a serious illness and you hope for improvement, even for a cure, you have to generate a different vision of your condition in your mind. That picture is painted in part by assimilating information about the disease and its potential treatments.

“But hope also involves what I would call affective forecasting — that is, the comforting, energizing, elevating feeling that you experience when you project in your mind a positive future. This requires the brain to generate a different affective, or feeling, state than the one you are currently in.”

Jerome Groopman, The Anatomy of Hope — How People Prevail in the Face of Illness

Throughout my career journey, as a combat medic, health policymaker, health communications professional, I embraced (and will continue to respect) orders and legal, medical and regulatory direction. Along with my rewarding life in heath communications, as an ordained rabbi, called upon to visit the ill and very ill, I find myself walking hospital hallways and being welcomed into people’s homes, listening, comforting and, yes, hoping for their recovery and return to health.

In the past 30 years, I have been privileged to help biopharmaceutical and health tech companies introduce scores of new medicines and devices into the marketplace for lifestyle and medical conditions. Today, in my varied leadership roles, I see my colleagues around the world dedicate themselves — with incredible heart and smarts — to ensure balanced, accurate information is shared so that people — patients, physicians, payers and advocates — can make informed decisions on next steps.

I remain amazed at how many obstacles exist that diminish quality care and people’s — both physician’s and patient’s hope — from challenges to accessing medical records as people journey from one medical institution to another to switching people’s medication for no apparent reason to struggling to gain sufficient talk time with their doctor to understand what is happening with their medical condition.

It’s frustrating. Yet, let us not despair. Let’s be optimistic. Medicine and hope are allies in healing. Communication is not separate from the collective mission to heal. Communication is hope’s bridge that unites science with care, and physicians and patients with their inner fire to heal and be healed.

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