How do you sell low carbon?

App example showing actual volumes of CO2 emerging from 3kW kettle in real-time (UK grid average)

Example of a potential car showroom sales tool

Example of eco-housing sales tool

CLIENT

Self-initiated

PURPOSE

To put visuals of real-time emissions into users hands.

DESCRIPTION

Development of an augmented reality app that reveals actual volumes of CO2 through a smart-phone or tablet screen.

How do you sell low or zero carbon products and services? As more and more companies are putting serious effort into developing products and services for the low-carbon future they face a communications challenge with consumers or B2B customers. How do you get across the benefits of low-carbon in a way that works?

Now there is a solution... an augmented reality app that reveals actual volumes of CO2 through a smart-phone or tablet screen.

We are pleased to announce that we are developing an app which allows viewers to ‘see’ the volumetrically accurate carbon emissions associated with household appliances, furnishings, vehicles, buildings, power stations... as real-time flows or bubble piles. Furthermore, using the app, sales teams and their potential customers will be able to compare services and products clearly showing the difference in emissions in the purchase of low-carbon options.

The ability to reach out to consumers through simple apps is very compelling.

Antony Turner, CEO Carbon Visuals

The ability to reach out to consumers through simple apps is very compelling. In addition we can design a complete sales solution around the app that engages and easily invites B2B or B2C customers to purchase low-carbon options.

Key features of the app include:

COMPARISON - shows the carbon footprint of products or services in comparison to your competitors

ACTUAL VOLUMES - demonstrates the actual volumes of CO2 as real-time streams or bubble piles / blocks

SHOW COSTS – combines with other important metrics e.g. costs

EASY-TO-USE - we work with your marketing team to create relevant and easy user interface within your sales campaigns

Versions are envisaged that highlight and compare low-carbon benefits of energy, vehicles, furnishings, building products etc.

For instance we can design a system for the green energy market where consumers are invited to buy energy that has a substantially lower carbon footprint than a fossil-fuel based energy mix. We envisage combining the technology with an elegant sales promotion campaign developed with the energy company's own marketing team.

Another example envisaged would be a version for use in car dealerships where new plug-in or eco-efficient cars are for sale. A simple set of questions about a customer’s existing car and journeys can allow the sales rep to immediately show the emissions associated with the 'old' car v the new model alongside financial savings.

Educational opportunities are limitless provided the data is available, and games-based versions could enable understanding of our 'high-carbon' world in a fun and sharable way.

To find out more about how this app could help your sales campaign, or to discuss other potential applications, please contact:

Antony Turner, CEO antony.turner@carbonvisuals.com

Visualising the carbon footprint of all US power stations

We are keen to find existing carbon emission data sets that would benefit from the Carbon Visuals treatment. So when CEO Antony Turner was invited to participate in an “Energy Data Jam” at Google's New York offices in July 2012 he was quick to accept as the aim of the event was to “…brainstorm how publicly available US datasets might be put to use in the continuing transition to a clean energy future.”

One set that we thought would benefit from ‘becoming visible’ was the eGRID data collated by the US EPA. This gives annual generation and environmental characteristics of all large electric power generators in the US.

A view showing the actual annual volume of CO2 produced by power stations around Chicago.

Emissions from power stations have been grouped by category and placed in order of size, making the biggest ever bar-chart in the process. The bases of the columns have dimensions 2,578 x 2,578 feet.

A view from Florida with 574 x 574 feet columns.

Narrower volumes do not give such a clear sense of volume, but they have the advantage of indicating the distribution of power stations more clearly.

The base of the 2,578 feet wide bar-chart as seen from Berkeley

By using our Google Earth Visualiser tool we are able to create images for any location in the US that show nearby power stations and associated data.

If you would like to explore this data using Google Earth you can download the KMZ file here.

Showing the emissions of power stations in this way is experimental, and a first step. We would welcome ideas and proposals on how this could be developed.

If you have collaboration or funding ideas please contact Carbon Visuals CEO Antony Turner.

Carbon footprint of 40,000 UK public buildings

The 'carbon canyons' of the city of London. Each tower represents the annual carbon footprint (2009/10) of a public building.

Clicking on the block reveals the Energy Certificate data.

A wider angle view of the carbon footprint of London's public buildings based on floor area

Big Ben in London surrounded by the 'carbon canyons'. Inset: Display Energy Certificate for HM Treasury

Carbon visuals specialises in providing a ‘feel’ for carbon data. Initially we focused on single statistics and small data-sets. Now we can use the same techniques to provide a sense of scale for tens of thousands of carbon footprints at the same time.

With a grant from the UK’s Technology Strategy Board we have been exploring real-time visualisation and the visualisation of large data-sets. One of the results is an interactive visualisation of the carbon footprint of every public building in England and Wales – 40 thousand of them!

http://uk-energy-ratings.carbonvisuals.com/ The visualisation works in any browser that can run the Google Earth plugin but because the dataset is large, the plugin may perform sluggishly on slow computers.

Or open in desktop version of Google Earth: http://uk-energy-ratings.carbonvisuals.com/kml/uk-emissions.kml

The visualisation uses a database of UK Display Energy Certificates – the energy ratings that all public buildings must display. Once we had geocoded these we displayed the buildings’ carbon footprint in 3D in Google Earth as actual volumes of carbon dioxide gas at the location of the building itself.

We can display the daily footprint as well as the annual footprint because a day’s emissions are sometimes easier to relate to activity. We can also display the footprint with reference to the floor-area of the building itself. Wide short footprints indicate buildings with smaller emissions per square metre than narrow tall footprints.

This application uses data obtained from the Department for Communities and Local Government by the Centre for Sustainable Energy.www.cse.org.uk/pages/resources/open-data

The visualisation works in a number of ways. It allows comparison with other comparable buildings at the same time as providing a sense of scale of emissions from buildings as a whole. Most importantly, it uses the world itself as part of its own explanation. Our familiarity with the real world – with buildings we work in and cities we travel through – is an underused resource in data visualisation. With Google Earth we can put that experience to work.

We can use the same techniques for any geocoded emissions data and create visualisations that can be explored interactively in Google Earth on the desktop or the web. We can also create stand-alone fly-through animations that present the data efficiently to any non-technical audience.

Bird's eye view of Westminster

UK Government departments exceed their 10% CO2 reduction targets

Government carbon dioxide emissions between May 2010 and May 2011 amounted to 646,231 tonnes, which is 13.8% less than the previous year.

The view from Pall Mall, looking down Waterloo Place.

Actual volumes of emissions (and targets and savings) from Government Departments.

View from Tottenham Court Road

Carbon Visuals was commissioned by DECC to produce a set of high-resolution Google Earth images to illustrate Government department carbon footprints and reduction targets. The total carbon dioxide emissions between May 2010 and May 2011 amounted to 646,231 tonnes, which is 13.8% less than the previous year. This is what that looks like.

The actual volume of carbon dioxide gas emitted by the UK Government in 2010/11 (red volume). The saving on 2009/10 - the gas that didn't enter the atmosphere - is shown as the dashed volume. The target is shown as a red band.

See the Government press release here:www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/news/pn11059/pn11059.aspx

Download the PDF with more info

The Carbon Quilt - a global engagement tool

This is the UK's carbon footprint - 532 million tonnes of CO2 - as a 'patch' of the Carbon Quilt

An imagined layer of carbon dioxide over London's buildings

Instead of trying to communicate the complexities of climate change, we believe that a simple understanding of how we are changing the atmosphere of the planet could transform society’s view of the need for a low-carbon future.

Every day we wrap the planet in a paper-thick layer of carbon dioxide!

We’ve done the maths and it’s true. The 80 million tonnes of CO2 we release to the atmosphere every day by burning fossil fuels would be 80 microns thick if it were a single, uninterrupted layer at 100% concentration over our heads. Over the course of a year, that amounts to 31mm, or over an inch.

We call this imagined layer the Carbon Quilt – since pre-industrial times its thickness has increased from 2.3 metres to 3.2 metres.

In 2010, with support from The Tedworth Charitable Trust, we 'soft-launched' our Carbon Quilt web-tool that enables people to ‘see’ any carbon footprint – from a short car journey to the footprint of a country or continent. Any carbon footprint can be seen in proportion to any other, and in proportion to the global whole. It can also be positioned in a location that has meaning and provides a sense of scale for the person viewing it.

Carbon Visuals has ambitious plans to develop this technical prototype tool on Google Earth to bring the abstract concept of 'carbon footprints' to life for over a billion people worldwide.

We are now actively seeking funding and/or sponsors to help us to develop this project. Please contact us if you have funding ideas, contacts or expertise that could help advance this project.

BITC Mayday Network businesses' carbon footprint (and reduction)

To the left is a picture for the BITC (Business in the Community) Mayday Annual Report 2010.

Each year humans release enough carbon dioxide to cover the entire planet in a layer 37 mm thick. The proportion of this 'quilt' that reporting Mayday Network businesses are responsible for is the green 'patch'.

Total reported emissions in 2010 (green patch) is 5.6 million tonnes of CO2(e). Emission reduction in previous 12 months is shown as the dotted area.

It represents a saving of 400 thousand tonnes of CO2(e).