Carbon Zero Accelerator
Using Research to Unpack a Complex Problem
The Challenge
The discovery phase was extremely important, as much of the work done to date was mostly on the technical aspects of the project. Little work had been done to understand the human side of this process.
Our first step was to immerse ourselves in the world of sustainability and the net zero process. We needed to get to know our users - learn about their goals, pain points and motivators.
The Approach
5 rounds of user research with over 30 different agencies and local councils
1:1 60-min remote interviews
Quantitative survey capturing attitudes and sentiment towards carbon zero
Creating research outputs that encourage further action
The Outcome
We distilled our research into 3 key takeaways:
Each agency is on their own journey, and their ability to build a net zero pathway depends on a number of factors
Building out a net zero pathway is a linear, but iterative process that is constantly evolving
Incremental progress is just as important as being comprehensive
Given the massive scale of the problem and the potential solution, these insights acted as strategic guardrails, helping the team to focus on the most important parts of the problem to solve.
Organisational Archetypes
We had a hunch that there would be agencies would facing similar challenges. What we found is that there’s a combination of factors - agency size, building types, level of expertise and availability of resources will all influence an agency’s ability to plan and execute plan to net zero.
We identified 4 agency archetypes, each with their own set of needs, challenges and pain points.
Breaking down and grouping agencies in this way helped us:
Understand sizing
Inform the tool’s Customer Value Proposition
Shape our communication style
Inform our design approach
Decide on priorities
