Blog | Storytelling to touch the hearts

Visiting Milan to join the 2023 European Business and Nature Summit (EBNS 2023), where frontrunning European businesses will discuss their action on nature, my first stop is the city’s cathedral. What a powerful masterpiece this is. Inspirational, not only for architects and tourists, but also for everyone who wants to learn how to reach the hearts of people.

Victor Hugo wrote that “architecture is the great book of humanity, the principal expression of man”. And whoever is standing in front of the impressive Milan cathedral cannot but agree with this. What a marble book this is, with more than 3400 sculptures adorning it, each one of them telling a compelling story to touch the hearts of the viewers.

This makes cathedrals as well as many other edifices in the world so powerful. For ages, it was not books but buildings that brought stories that everybody could understand, also for those that couldn’t read or write. Especially cathedrals, temples, and grave monuments were storybooks, as not only the European cathedrals testify, but also, for example, the Borobudur temple in Central Java and the Chichén Itzá pyramid in Yucatan.

The crisis of climate, nature and social inequity requires compelling stories

In modern times the need for compelling stories is not less than in the time of the great stone monuments of the past. Especially when facing the triple crisis of climate, nature, and social inequity.

Nothing is more powerful than a good story to touch people. That is what the builders of the cathedral in Milan and other ancient monuments knew. And what we all should do better. Storytelling. On the why, the who, and the what to do.

Therefore, we have collected more than 150 case studies at the Capitals Coalition. To share stories on how companies, financial organizations and governments are integrating the value of nature and people to change their decision-making and create a better world. Additionally, as part of the TEEBAGriFood for Business project, over 20 pilot applications have been developed that provide a pathway to food system transformation. With all these examples we are trying to create a modern version of the architectural masterpieces of the past: a website adorned with compelling stories.

The BIONEXT project also has an important role in building stories to initiate change. It builds stories on how biodiversity affects all of us. It tells the stories of the interlinkages and interdependencies between the elements of biodiversity, water, food, energy, health, climate, and transport and how to achieve transformative change.

Transformation is not only a need but an opportunity

But, of course, storytelling is a verb, an activity. That’s why we at Capital Coalition are joining EBNS 2023 in Milan, with several of our partners, to share their stories. To hopefully touch the summit’s participants. To make them see, believe, and feel, that there’s not only a need but also an opportunity in transformation.

Let’s touch their hearts.

Martin Lok is the Executive Director of the Capitals Coalition. He is also part of the BIONEXT advisory board which actively provides feedback on project activities, advises on possibilities to make interdisciplinary research, and expands stakeholder networks.