Sustainability as Cultural Practice and Media as Institutions of Change

Today, everything seems to be “trimmed” for a sustainable future. Energy companies, the local bakery, the woman traveling to work with her bike. Sustainability is a moral compass, increasingly guiding individual behavior and decision-making; but above all, it challenges organizations of all kind and scope and drives their stakeholder relations and communication, manifested in 17 colorful Sustainable Development Goals (UN, 2021) and related frameworks on a national, regional, and local level. Accordingly, in 2021, cultural institutions including media corporates started to position themselves toward sustainability. They communicate their Corporate Social Responsibility and related activities, they consider their public role and value, and they increasingly publish information on the changing climate and for sustainable development. In this situation, it seems to be necessary to better understand the role of the media in processes of social change and transformation and in creating a “culture of sustainability” within and through the public sphere. The chapter at hand develops the idea of sustainability as cultural practice and, thus, picks up the concept of media’s twin responsibility and develops and re-defines media’s role in the global sustainability development.