water

Past, present and future - Oundle School

Water used in one minute

Water used in one minute

CLIENT

Oundle School

PURPOSE

To assist the environmental engagement of staff, pupils and others.

DESCRIPTION

Package including a report and 17 sketches.

Oundle School dates back to 1556 when Lord Mayor of London Sir William Laxton endowed and re-founded the original Oundle Grammar School, of which he was a former pupil.

Early in the 20th century, Oundle gained a reputation for science and engineering which has continued to this day with the development of SciTec, a major new science complex. As new and growing 21st century issues increasingly come to the fore, we were delighted to receive an enquiry about whether we could help with the engagement of staff, pupils and others to reduce environmental impacts and, potentially, utility bills too. This provided us with an opportunity to test how we could offer real value within the bounds of a limited budget.

Working with just five annual figures from the School – gas, electricity and water use, waste to landfill and the School population, we were able to provide a bespoke package. Our illustrated report Ways of seeing Oundle’s impact sets out calculations, reference sources, coefficients and assumptions, a compendium of facts, some surprising and memorable examples of energy equivalence and answers to a set of FAQs. Seventeen accurate volumetric sketches show emissions and water use over periods from a second to a year.

We got boarding house consumption of electricity down by 21% in March, and I am sure that a large part of that was through the visualisation, report and sketches.

Ian Clark, Oundle School

The materials have been used in a variety of ways in outreach, training for service providers, posters and in classes with changes in behaviour starting to be noticed straight away and helping Oundle School move forward on the path towards environmental sustainability.

Resource efficiency in Asia Pacific

CLIENT

United Nations Environment Programme

PURPOSE

To convey the scale and complexity of resource use in the Asia Pacific region at a conference of Environment Ministers and subsequently to other audiences.

DESCRIPTION

A high impact video and interactive web-tools to introduce and enable easy exploration of a database covering 26 Asia Pacific countries, 157 indicators and 40 years.

How much natural resources are used to earn one dollar in developing countries in the Asia Pacific region? How do you effectively show water, metal and biomass usage rates across 26 Asian countries - and make it personal and real? What is the best way to visualise a range of environmental resource indicators ‘per GDP’ across countries?

These were some of the challenges set for us by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in a project undertaken in conjunction with our not-for-profit partner CarbonSense Foundation.

This video has taken our communications to a higher level, and improved our ability to cut across a crowded policy landscape to really help decision makers reflect on resource efficiency.

Janet Salem, UNEP, Bangkok

The brief from the UNEP Bangkok office was to design and create a short, high impact video to convey the scale and complexity of resource use in the Asia Pacific region. In addition a set of interactive web-tools is being provided to complement the film and allow easy exploration of the data.

The film is supporting a database of resource efficiency data covering 26 Asia Pacific countries, 157 indicators and 40 years (1970-2010). The indicators are designed to inform policy development in the region based on the principles of circular economy, sustainable consumption and production principles.*

Resource efficiency is crucial for sustainability but how do you make it real and meaningful at a national and a personal level? To bring such a huge subject up front and personal, we combined live action film introducing very real piles of materials on a table-top with national and regional resource use and impacts made tangible with CGI graphics. And uniquely this project allowed us to explore ways that our creative techniques could be combined with economic data.

Because of the complexity of data and fast-track time schedule the project was carried out in a highly collaborative way, with UNEP staff in Bangkok supporting our creative team throughout the scoping, design and production phases.

The film was used to launch the UNEP Report at a conference on 19th May 2015 attended by Achim Steiner, Executive Director of UNEP, and Environment Ministers and policy makers from the Asia Pacific region.

See the UNEP webpage on project here

Finally - a very special thanks to Janet Salem of UNEP, Bangkok and our film presenter / narrator Patchari Raksawong.

*The database has been developed as a result of a three-year science-based consultative process mandated by countries in the region and coordinated by UNEP, the CSIRO and the Asia-Pacific Roundtable on Sustainable Consumption and Production (APRSCP), with support from the European Union's SWITCH-Asia Programme.

An important part of this project was the creation of an interactive web-tool (see above) allowing policymakers to explore the database in detail in an intuitive way. We created a 'heat map' that allows comparison between a wide range of economic indicators for different countries. Mousing over the countries reveals the actual data.

Carbon Visuals has shown us different techniques to visualize data in a way that can resonate on a meaningful human level, while still giving us creative space for collaboration. We had a lot of fun with the team and it's been a really wonderful partnership.

Janet Salem, UNEP, Bangkok

Visualising water use for AGM

CLIENT

South West Water

PURPOSE

 

Film to provide shareholders with an engaging view of the business, highlight the challenge of managing a finite resource, and demonstrate the company's competence.

DESCRIPTION

Animation showing the volume of the world's drinking water and real-time water use by the business. Also, images showing UK water use per head, comparison with other countries and the breakdown of how 137 litres per person is used.

South West Water, a utility business supplying drinking water and waste water services in the south west of England, wanted a short film for the 2014 Annual General Meeting (AGM) of their parent company Pennon Group Plc.

The aim was to provide shareholders who attended the meeting with a different and engaging view of the business, highlighting the challenge of managing a finite resource, and demonstrating the company's competence.

We created a short animation showing the volume of the world's drinking water, and a view of the actual water use of the business in real-time. In addition we created several still images showing UK water use per head compared to other countries, and the breakdown of how the 137 litres per person is used.

Finally we incorporated some video footage from the Space Station as well as some of the client's own photos into the film as a backdrop for key messages.

See Creative Director Adam Nieman's blog on visualising water here.

The case for Carbon Capture & Storage

CLIENT

World Business Council for Sustainable Development

PURPOSE

To engage world leaders, industry experts, campaigners and scientists at the UN Climate Summit, New York, September 2014 and to catalyse and inform conversations about reducing carbon emissions.

DESCRIPTION

Film showing actual quantities of global fossil fuel consumption and carbon emissions, and the part that carbon capture and storage can play in limiting global climate change to 2 degrees.

Among all of the documents, reports and images being released around the UN summit, we hope that this film will stand out and benefit all participants, as well as anyone who watches it around the world.

Peter Bakker President, WBCSD

A coal pile buries the UN General Assembly, gas races down 42nd Street and then New York is lost under a blue mountain. These dramatic CGI scenes, depicting actual quantities, create an immersive journey that brings home the scale of global carbon emissions and fossil fuel consumption.

This dynamic four-minute film, being launched at the UN Climate Change Summit in New York September 2014, shows the part that carbon capture and storage can play in limiting global climate change to 2 degrees.

Commissioned by WBCSD and produced by Carbon Visuals, the animation is being shown to world leaders, industry experts, campaigners and scientists at the Summit to help catalyse and inform conversations about reducing carbon emissions.

 

Key messages of the film:

  • use of renewables is increasing
  • but energy use is rising faster
  • fossil fuel use is increasing not decreasing
  • if carbon stored in fossil fuel reserves is burnt we exceed 2 degrees warming by 2055
  • carbon capture & storage (CCS) is an essential part of the 2 degrees solution

Technical note
The volumes of coal, oil, gas and CO2 shown in the film are accurate volumes based on best available data. A detailed Technical Data Methodology document has been produced to accompany the film. This shows all data sources, assumptions on future global renewable and non-renewable energy requirements and the potential of carbon capture and storage technology.

See the Methodology Document for more details

In 2012 we added over 39 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. That’s 1,237 metric tons a second. 

It is like a ‘bubble’ of carbon dioxide gas 108 metres across entering the atmosphere every second of every day. We could fill a volume the size of the UN Secretariat Building with our carbon dioxide emissions in less than half a second. We could fill it 133 times a minute.

The pile of one metric ton spheres in the film, which represents one day’s emissions, is 3.7 km high (2.3 miles) and 7.4 km across (4.6 miles).

The world gets through a lot of fossil fuels:

  • 7,896.4 million metric tons of coal a year (21.6 million metric tons per day, 250 metric tons per second)

  • 91,330,895 barrels of oil per day (168 m3 per second)

  • 3,347.63 billion m3 of natural gas per year (9.2 km3 per day, 106,082 m3 per second)

This film tries to make those numbers physically meaningful – to make the quantities real; more than ‘just numbers’.

The coal we use each day would form a pile 192 metres high and 546 metres across. We could fill a volume the size of the UN Secretariat Building with coal every 17 minutes.   At the rate we use oil, we could fill an Olympic swimming pool every 15 seconds.

This would fill a volume the size of the UN Secretariat Building with oil every 30 minutes.

The rate at which we use natural gas is equivalent to gas travelling along a pipe with an internal diameter of 60 metres at hurricane speeds (135 km/h / 84 mph). We could fill a volume the size of the UN Secretariat Building with natural gas in under 3 seconds.

We use a cubic kilometre of gas every 2 hours 37 minutes and a cubic mile of the stuff every 10 hours 54 minutes.

A set of shorter clips has also been released, featuring some of the most impactful scenes of the main film. These are intended for use by everyone, from industry through to educators and campaigners. Get in touch if you would like hi-res versions.

Main film and extract films can be viewed on YouTube:

Whole film

Fossil Fuels Extract

Carbon Dioxide Extract

Natural Gas Extract

Oil Extract

Coal Extract

All images are available under Creative Commons licence to download on our Flickr page

See blog background story.

Barts NHS Trust Estates Strategy

Barts Health NHS Trust was formed in 2012. It is the largest in the country with multiple sites and major projects planned and underway. For presentation of the Estate Strategy we created 3D models and a map=based animation that showed, in simplified form, development and other planned changes over a five-year period, together with data for water, gas and electricity usage.

We also provided a set of images for use in other presentation formats and media.