Abstract Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is discussed as a technology for mitigating climate change. With social scientific research on CCS having increased considerably over the last decade, this paper offers a first comprehensive review and evaluation of studies that investigate the way CCS projects are communicated to (local) stakeholders and the general public. We conduct a systematic review of 115 papers for a state-of-the-art assessment of research on communication practices in CCS projects. Based on this review we compile an extensive list of the recommendations provided for CCS outreach activities and scrutinize it for limitations. This enables us to show that “best practices” in communication need to be applied in context sensitive approaches and to highlight factors in communication (such as social media) which have been underutilized up to now. Furthermore, we identify two conceptual shortcomings that limit the scope of CCS communication research: first, the majority of the literature refers to CCS as applied to the fossil fuel-based energy sector and thereby narrows the debate. Second, while the social scientific debate has moved on from the mere study of acceptance of CCS to practices of communication, we find that the theoretical lens applied to communication is still largely focused on convincing people to accept CCS. We argue that future research should tackle these shortcomings by paying more attention to CCS projects that go beyond coal or natural gas power plants. Additionally, it is advised to theoretically reframe communication efforts by emphasizing long-term alliance building through participation and joint goals instead of focussing on short-term persuasion and simple strategies of raising acceptance.