inspiring engagement a design brief for the City of Vancouver Renewable City Strategy
pernilla agne, christian lagazpi, sue lin, mackenzie shopland, angela tam, and cem unlu. 2
Table of Contents 1. MEet the team 2. meet the client 3. identifying the audience 4. timeline 5. assumptions and constraints 6. identifying the problem a. key problems b. the 5 why’s 7. measuring success 8. building an identity 9. opportunity statement 10. appendix
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meet the team pernilla agne I am an exchange student from sweden and am studying Industrial Engineering together with business and management. I also specialize in Energy and Environment because I am dedicated to contributing to a greener world. As a member of this group, I can contribute my acquired knowledge on the subject as well as providing a different viewpoint from another country.
christian lagazpi Hey! I am a fourth year student studying Finance and International Business. I enjoy big-picture thinking and finding ways to improve business processes. The Renewable City Strategy is a great opportunity to learn about the direction Vancouver wants to go in, and what projects are already in place. I hope to take away a stronger sense of what it means to be a true Vancouverite from this project.
sue lin As a citizen of the global world, I am happy to contribute to environmental problem solutions. Also, as a 4th year psychology student, I am excited to work with renewable energy strategy team and apply my knowledge to the real world, especially about human behavior and how people interact with the environment.
mackenzie shopland I am a student in the Land in Food Systems program at UBC focusing on systems thinking in the context of urban development. Urban history/geography, food resource economics, and various agricultural studies and volunteer work have been at the core of education though I have also taken courses in media studies and first nations studies to frame my understanding.
angela tam
I am a fourth year student studying environmental design at ubc. born and raised on vancouver island, i have always felt a keen sense of environmental stewardship to protect the amazing landscapes that surround us. I am particularly interested in using design thinking and the skills i have learned in my program to reach innovative and creative solutions to combat real world problems.
cem unlu I am currently studying my third year in Finance and International Business. My interests include learning languages and playing soccer. I am hoping to contribute to this group by utilising my skills of analysis and campaigning.
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we are honoured to work with the city of vancouver to create a project that genuinely caters to the public realm. As a truly diverse team of individuals, all hailing from different cities and fields of study, we hope to utilise all of our separate experiences, knowledge, and skills to create a wellinformed, interdisciplinary design solution for the city of vancouver’s renewable city strategy.
meet the client the renewable city strategy positions vancouver to become a world leader in sustainability, further increases its economic diversity for a stronger, more resilient economy, and ensures the protection of our planet for generations to come. target 1: derive 100% of the energy used in vancouver from renewable sources before 2050
target 1: reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80% below 2007 levels before 2050 5
identifying the audience public
The clearest way for the Renewable City Strategy to gain momentum is to engage the public and garner their interests in a united front. The public boasts an array of profiles that are distinct to one another -- a primary reason why creating engagement has been an issue. How do we address dissenters? What sustainable advice can we give to new homeowners on a budget? These are topics central to the Renewable City Strategy. However, we quickly realized that we would have to dramatically scale down our target audience in order to effectively reach them. This brought us to a demographic we’re extremely familiar with: millennials.
This segment consists of individuals born in the 1980s-2000. This category of beings is expected to have an incredible impact on the economy. Similarly, we can say the same thing of its impact to the world. Millennials tend to have an affinity to technology considering they were born in a period of constant technological disruption. As such, the habits and behaviors of these individuals are far different from those of generations before. At a closer scope, millennials have information at their fingertips 24/7; thus, strategies that focus on having information out there is simply not enough. It is about the design, the delivery, and the interface of how info can connec t with humans.
millennials
(individuals born in the 1980s-2000)
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Connecting with millennials through an easy-to-understand and interactive front is essential to our strategy. There are already countless resources on sustainable strategies and what it means to cities. Millennials knows this, but they want to know it on a personal level: a level between Vancouver and them.
In order for the renewable city strategy to truly move forward, partnership with and support from private sectors will be crucial. different industries contribute to varying quantities of greenhouse gases and use significant amounts of energy to keep their buildings, factories, offices and machinery running. We decided to target small to medium sized businesses because they make up a huge percentage of the business sector. 90% of businesses employ 50 people or less while 70% of businesses employ only 10 people or less. We want to take this opportunity to connect with this large network while building meaningful relationships between these important local businesses and the city of vancouver.
private
These stakeholders are prominent figures in the business landscape of Vancouver. As a top-20 city in the world for start-ups, the opportunity to build sustainably are endless. Our strategy will examine the role that sustainability can play in smaller businesses. Akin to that, we want to understand the cost structure of businesses and strategize sustainable practices that can provide benefit. Ultimately, we want to look into identifying opportunities to save on cost and energy consumption, and to provide carbon savings. Down the project timeline, our strategy would like to provide research that can help engage smaller businesses to serve sustainably.
small to medium businesses (account for 90% of business sector in Vancouver)
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try: conducting surveys and interviewin ASK: Understanding the problem;
professionals
ASK: problem
Collecting facts, data and information. This stage was based upon research and study of previous information. this included studying the greenest city action plan 2020 and the renewable city strategy 2050 carefully and succinctly. it was important for us to be able to clearly express the project to ourselves and to others.
Through our research, we were impressed by the amount and quality of information that was available to the public. However, the problem, was accessing it. We then employed methods such as the 5 why’s to further zero in on the problem we wanted to focus upon.
After becoming fully acquainted with the strategy itself, we were prepared to begin asking questions and study precedents.
ASK January-february 8
identification
ASK: audience identification Due to the broad nature of our client and the strategy at hand, it was important to specify a target audience. Seeing as we are all naturally viewing the problem through the lenses of millennials, and also considering the impact of millennials on the organic and dynamic form of the city, it seemed like an easy choice.
Surveying students, the public , and businesse will be important to understand people’s current knowledge about the rcs and also wha they would like to see coming from the city. During this time, we will also talk to the vec (vancouver economic commission in order to identify a key audience in the small to mid-siz business sector
ASK/try: collecting content
Here we will be beginning to collect a understand specific content that we w use and provide in the toolkit we prov the public to interact with the RCS.
ASK/
february
timeline
ng
es
at
ze
try: Prototyping the toolkit
do: gathering feedback
Here we will compile the content we want to make available into a preliminary toolkit. We will hopefully find businesses at the Globe 2016 Conference that will be willing to test out the prototype.
We will gather feedback on the toolkit prototype from the city of vancouver, climate smart, the VEC, the professor, individual millennials and businesses who have tried out the toolkit
and want to vide for
try: testing effectiveness and engagement We will attempt to conduct several rounds of prototyping while also testing different ways to measure the actual engagement and effectiveness of the toolkit.
/try
y-march
In the final stages of our project, we hope to have the framework of an interactive system that will better connect users with the renewable strategy. This toolkit will provide users with all the information they need to make informed sustainable decisions and make them a proud partner of the City of Vancouver.
do: creating the final iteration We will use the feedback gathered to create an improved and revised toolkit that directly responds to suggestions and ideas collected from the test users
try/do march-april 9
assumptions and constraints it is important to identify and state assumptions and constraints in order for our audience and us to share a common understanding of where we are, how we got here, and where we are going.
what can we assume? about our audiences
1. People still care about the earth and the environment they live in. 2. People don’t know all of the facts. Their knowledge on environmental issues is limited which may result in indifferent behavior. 3. People feel no sense of urgency towards the current environmental situation which may inhibit them from engaging in pro-environment behavior.
what are obstacles and constraints? 1. People’s mindsets and behaviours are hard to predict. No matter how much information we provide, we cannot guarantee how they will respond. 2. Most environmental problems require long term solutions, making it hard to show people immediate results to get them engaged. 3. There are many variables that are difficult to control that can affect the strategy.
about the renewable city strategy 1. More information made readily accessible will increase people’s desires and willingness to contribute their efforts. 2. The more accessible the information, the more effective it will be to encourage implementation of strategy 3. There is no ‘one solution’ for the problems rcs faces 4. Budget is not a constraint when designing our proposed solutions 10
1. When working with the city, it can be difficult to make and conduct plans while dealing with red tape. 2. Because many policies and plans already exist, they restrict what our team can further develop. 3. Our team may be lacking resources, power and technology in order to develop our ideas.
key problems 1. lack of accessibility and affordability
2. building rapport with businesses
$$ 3. measurability OF SUCCESS
4. operational difficulties
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identifying the problem why `
the 5 why’s
do we need to engage the public with the renewable city strategy? 1. engagement with the public realm is imperative for the strategy to be successful 2. in order to save the earth and environment from further irreparable damage (for other living beings, ourselves, and future generations 3. In order to make people genuinely care about and therefore act to make positive environmental change
why
is it difficult to engage the public?
why
is there a knowledge gap between what information is available and what the public know?
1. there is no sense of urgency for the public to act 2. there is a lack of knowledge and or information 3. it seems inconvenient to change habits to implement more sustainable options 4. there is seemingly no immediate cost benefits in supporting the Renewable city strategy
1. THERE IS A LACK OF ACCESSIBILITY TO ALREADY RESEARCHED INFORMATION 2. MANY PEOPLE DON’T FEEL A NECCESSITY IN ACQUIRING THIS INFORMATION BECAUSE IT IS “NOT THEIR PROBLEM” 3. MANY PEOPLE DON’T REALIZE THAT THIS INFORMATION IS AVAILABLE TO THEM
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why
do people feel there is a lack of information?
why
has communication of information been ineffective?
1. COMMUNICATION IN RELAYING THIS INFORMATION HAS BEEN INEFFECTIVE 2. SOME PEOPLE MAY PREFER TO BE OBLIVIOUS RATHER THEN PUTTING IN EFFORT AND OR FEELING GUILTY ABOUT NOT PUTTING IN EFFORT
1. CHANNELS USED AREN’T GETTING SUBSTANTIAL VIEWERSHIP 2. PREVIOUS SIMILAR INFORMATION HAS BEEN HEARD TO DEATH - NO LONGER TRIGGERS A KNEE-JERK REACTION
so ... how do we use this information in new engaging ways to inform and excite the public to take action?
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measuring success due to the broad scope of the strategy and its audience, it will be difficult to measure a quantifiable success. In general, we hope our project will encourage a livelier dialogue concerning the renewable city strategy within the public realm. In addition to monitoring simple viewership and usership, we will strive to actively monitor real engagement and effectiveness through communication with test users.
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overview of target results and key indicators
completion of toolkit and web resource center
short term awareness Increased Awareness for Millennial Demographic - Recall, Recognition, Responsiveness -Unique Visitors to Website -Toolkit Usage -Social Media Presence -Survey
Increased Awareness for Small Business Demographic - Project Proposals, Concrete Application, Partnership Outreach -Dedicated Partners -Presence at Business Events -VEC Support Intermediate
intermediate attitude and knowledge
action
Increased Knowledge and Support of Policies by Multiple Stakeholders -Favorable Opinion of Initiatives -Interest in Personal Opportunities
Voluntary Adoption of Toolkit Methodologies and Active Application of Website Information -Business Planning -Construction -Home Level Waste/ Energy Reduction
Understanding of and Interest in Applications of Web Resource
Positive Feedback Loop between Education and Positive Opinions of and Interest in Future Initiatives -Including Other Current Initiatives
long term behavior
impacts energy use
High Compliance with Environmental Standards Public/Private Demand for Further Renewable Initiatives
Decreased energy use and waste
Value Propagation and Word of Mouth Education -Social Media -Related Interest Group Activities Participation in Public Forums and Events Related to Sustainability and Renewables Increased Demand for Businesses Adhering to Standards of Renewable Energy and Sustainability
Focus on Renewable Energy Use and Waste Reduction Becomes Embedded in Target Demographics
Goals of Initiative Embedded and Actively Improved Upon within Variety of Demographics
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building an identity vancouver is known around the world for its incredible surrounding landscapes:
lush forests, vast expanses of ocean, awe-inspiring mountains. our superb air quality is not something we are mindfully grateful for every day, but what would happen if it was taken away? Vancouver would not be the same vancouver we know and love. in supporting the renewable city strategy 2050, businesses and individuals will be directly aligning themselves with the the city’s goals and values, in turn, showing that they share vancouver’s identity and pride in being a top leading city in sustainability and incredible beauty.
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opportunity statement Within the Renewable City Strategy 2050, we found the opportunity to create a framework that can increase engagement between the City of Vancouver and a portion of its residents, namely millennials and small to mid-size businesses. We intend to achieve this by producing new meaningful content that can be used to engage the audience and through connecting the city and users with a shared understanding of Vancouver’s identity, both currently and in the future, as a city rooted in sustainability. We hope that our project will allow the Renewable City Strategy to gain more exposure in the city and will become a catalyst for discussion and environmental action amongst the city and all of its stakeholders.
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appendix
6 thinking hats
Six Thinking Hats: Choosing to focus on engagement in hopes that it can become a future catalyst for environmental discussion.
white hat
yellow hat
A city leader in sustainability comes with a sense of stronger pride and identity. Vancouverites are more willing to buy into the strategy because of their newly shared passion for the City. More so, we can expect a city that will lead healthy lifestyles, has better air quality and enhanced natural surroundings, and that can act as a hub for green businesses. The Renewable City Strategy looks to intertwine sustainable practices to expand the economy, the people, and the environment
black hat
Why should the Renewable City Strategy matter to the public and the private sector when they carry the mindset that the negative externalities of global warming will affect them in 100 years? The Black Hat will say that that the primary difficulty is not only engaging the public, but having them act. Individuals commonly want convenience, cheap alternatives, and follow a mob-like mentality.
red hat
The Strategy evokes a feeling of identity; one that our group wants to distill in others. It is inspiring that Vancouver wants to be at the forefront in sustainability; however, it is also worrisome that we are expecting a conversion to 100% renewable energy resource use. Engaging the public and having them feel excited about the strategy is ideal. Conversely, we fear the fact that the public’s opinion cannot be swayed.
green hat
blue hat
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Vancouver uses 59 GJ of energy a year, and releases 2.8 million of CO2 as a result. Currently, Vancouver’s stands at 31% renewable energy resource usage with the remaining being powered through fossil fuels. Ultimately, the Strategy wants to use 38.3 million GJ in 2050.
This is a great opportunity to revamp the branding strategy of the Renewable City Strategy: new layout on website, different and more engaging content, and campaigns that are meaningful to citizens of Vancouver. This is a strong chance to showcase what sustainable business practice means in the form of an example online, or highlight what sustainable city living looks like from a local’s point of view.
This hat sets the parameters and boundaries of the other thinking hats. Our group assumes that our deliverable will be a form of engagement and/or a resource that includes engaging content that can be used in future projects serviced by the Renewable City Strategy.
business model canvas
Public: - Media (information) - UBC (sustainability, common energy, campus planning) - Government - City Studio
- BC Hydro Business: - Media(profile/achieve ment) - Climate smartĂ NGO - VEC - Government
Public agencies BC Hydro
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Marketing Education + Advocacy n Campaigns n media Collaboration with other stakeholders(business)
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Existing information + research Conducting surveys to generate new user info Other city examples Partnerships with existing groups
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Less individuals grants More community / NGO grants
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Marketing expenses Labour expenses Project expenses
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Creating a common identity + emotional tie between gov. and consumer/customer/inh
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abitant of Vancouver n pride
Public n Millennials Small businesses n medium Dissenters
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Supports + advocators
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Media (soft +hard) Campaigns Word of mouth Signage/advertising
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Schools businesses
please refer to opportunity statement
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Federal taxes / government
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Provincial taxes
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Municipal taxes
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