University of exeter trials Emissions Visualiser

CLIENT

University of Exeter, UK

PURPOSE

To reduce the environmental impact of the University of Exeter by raising awareness of energy use and carbon emissions and encouraging energy-saving behaviour and actions.

DESCRIPTION

A prototype interactive web-tool and animation that presents energy data in a way that could help academics, staff and students understand the environmental impact of all 120 buildings on the two campuses at Exeter University.

The university has set an ambitious carbon reduction target of 43% by 2020 based on emissions in 2005/2006.  Achieving this reduction is going to be a challenge for the University as it continues to grow and provide quality facilities for teaching, students, research and staff.

The estates department wanted to see if Carbon Visuals could create a web-based interactive that would engage people on campus in the energy consumption and carbon footprint of all the buildings in a non-technical and visual way.  Initially sized for running on tablets, the prototype tool runs on desk-tops and mobile phones with modern browsers.  The inclusion of social media links allows images and information to be shared and opens the way for more dialogue with the Estates Department.  

In order to raise interest in the web-tool we also created a simple animation and VINE showing the total real-time carbon emissions of the university.  

The effectiveness of the web-tool will now be tested with groups of students, academics and appropriate staff.  Note that at present the Projects tab for buildings has not yet been populated. 

A similar prototype tool, animation or overview visual can be created quickly and economically for any university, college or estate - anywhere in the world.  We are currently looking for up to six additional universities who would like to pilot this communication method.

To find out more contact:  Antony Turner +44 (0)7973 641131      antony.turner@carbonvisuals.com

 

ENGAGED AND NON-ENGAGED AUDIENCES

We specialise in reaching ‘non-engaged’ audiences. People who do not feel ownership of the data you present and do not come to the data with prior questions of their own are what we call ‘non-engaged’ audiences. They have very different needs from other audiences for data visualisation, but the distinction is often ignored. Most data visualisation is created as if the audience already understands the significance of the data and are keen to explore it.

Engaged audiences include building managers and people charged with reducing environmental impact or cutting costs. To present energy data or emissions data to these audiences, graphs and other ‘abstract’ representations are appropriate. These audiences already know what they are looking at – they just want to scrutinise it for any trends that can provide insight or hints for improvement.

This text is from our blog that provides the rationale for this interactive tool.  

UN ozone celebrations

CLIENT

United Nations Environment Programme

PURPOSE

To communicate and celebrate 30 years of international effort in protecting the ozone layer.

DESCRIPTION

A campaign that includes a series of animations, visual images, print and online communication tools to help communicate what the ozone layer is, where it is in the atmosphere and what has been achieved under the ozone protection regime.

Image from 'Precious Ozone' film - all the ozone brought together at sea level temperature and pressure would fill a sphere 14 km in diameter.

Image from 'Precious Ozone' film - all the ozone brought together at sea level temperature and pressure would fill a sphere 14 km in diameter.

Carbon Visuals created the anniversary logo and posters in six languages for the campaign

Image from 'Precious Ozone' film showing the edge of space. 99.99997% of air in the atmosphere is below this level.

Image from 'Precious Ozone' film showing the edge of space.

Image from 'Precious Ozone' film

Image from 'Precious Ozone' film - footage from the International Space Station.

Image from 'Precious Ozone' film - the distribution of ozone in the atmosphere. Each pink spot in this 20 km x 20 km column of air represents 10 billion billion billion ozone molecules.

Thirty years ago the first images of the ozone hole created a media storm and helped lead to the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer and the Montreal Protocol.

People only had to look at a picture to physically see atmospheric chemistry. It didn’t take much persuasion to convince the policy makers to take action. 

Pawan Bhartia, NASA atmospheric scientist

Carbon Visuals was honoured to be asked to create a digital campaign to communicate and celebrate the 30th anniversary of this event.  We did not want to ‘re-invent the wheel’ so we started by researching what we felt was missing from ozone communications to date.  

Our view was that few people have an intuitive sense of what the ozone hole is like, where it is, how much ozone there is, or how deep the atmosphere is.  So we have created a selection of visual images, animations and web-tools that help everyone from policymakers to children better understand these things.

Over the coming months different elements will be releasedalongside key events within the UNEP calendar.  This week, July 20-23, we are releasing two elements.

Precious ozone - the size of it

A short animation and a set of still images give viewers a sense of scale for how much air there is in the atmosphere and how much of it is ozone.  

Click here to view on Youtube.

Ozone Globe

An interactive / self-running globe that displays current ozone distribution and also celebrates each country’s ratification of the Vienna Convention.

Click here to visit the interactive

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

UN Ozone website: http://ozone.unep.org/en/infomaterials.php

Get Positive

CLIENT

Kingfisher plc

PURPOSE

To encourage staff interest in environmental impacts and corporate goals.

DESCRIPTION

Animation, stills and physical objects using volumes, displays and fun to make emissions and paper use more tangible.

Feedback from the launch has been very positive with people really taking to the visualisation of a tricky issue.

Sinead Conway, Net Positive Delivery Manager, Kingfisher plc

International retail group Kingfisher has developed a forward-looking approach to sustainability with a long-term Net Positive goal. This involves all employees including those based in the corporate centre.

We advised on presenting key data on emissions and paper use in fun, encouraging and engaging ways to spark interest at an internal launch event.

We provided a short volumetric animation set in a scene familiar to staff, and a set of cubes equivalent in size to one gram of carbon dioxide at 15°C and standard pressure. We also supplied one hour’s worth of brightly coloured balls sized to equate to emissions per person per minute and co-designed a striking display of current paper use.

Still from an animation using a seasonal setting familiar to staff.

Using volumes to help make emissions more tangible at personal and organisational scales.

Staff really responded positively to the personal element, seeing data broken down by person and in relation to familiar spaces.

Hannah Judge-Brown, Interim Programme Advisor - Net Positive, Kingfisher plc

The carbon footprint of one hour's TV production

CLIENT

BBC

PURPOSE

To illustrate the emissions resulting from TV production for an industry conference at White City.

DESCRIPTION

Animation that shows the real-time emissions associated with making one hour of broadcast ready production, and image set.

The television industry is taking steps towards addressing sustainability issues associated with TV productions. A key tool, created by the BBC and made available through a partnership with BAFTA, is Albert - a bespoke carbon calculator.

Carbon Visuals was commissioned by the BBC to produce a set of images and a real-time animation showing the emissions resulting from one hour of TV programming. The data was provided by about 80 productions that were the first to use the Albert calculator at the BBC.

This animation was created for the BBC and shows the real-time emissions associated with making one hour of broadcast ready production - equivalent to about 8.2 tonnes of carbon dioxide.

Average emissions associated with the major stages of a production are here shown in order of size and as a whole, depicted in front of the BBC White City building.

These visuals were first shown at an industry conference, which took place in the iconic BBC White City building that is depicted here, on 3rd November 2011.

The PDF illustrates the emissions of different parts of the production process.

Albert was developed & trialed within the BBC in 2011, with production managers and coordinators providing data on about 80 programmes. While there were considerable variations between productions, the average (mean) rate - about 8.2 tonnes of carbon dioxide per hour - provides a first attempt at establishing a figure against which programme makers will be able to gauge progress in future.

Annually within the BBC, about 3,800 hours of TV are produced in-house. An annual volume of emissions, based on the average rate per production hour for programme emissions calculated using Albert, is here shown with familiar BBC buildings in Salford and London for scale.

The average (mean) rate of emissions associated with TV production, based on data from about 80 programmes, is about 8.2 tonnes of carbon dioxide per hour.

This is roughly equivalent to the annual emissions associated with space heating, heating and lighting for a pair of semi-detached houses (figures provided by the BBC).

Based on the average rate per production hour for programme emissions, 11 hours of production time would fill the void in the centre of the BBC Television Centre in London - a space that is well-known to production teams.

8.2 tonnes of carbon dioxide, the emissions resulting from one hour of TV programming, would fill a cube over 16 metres tall

3,800 hours of TV production would result in this amount of CO2 being released to the atmosphere

8.2 tonnes compared with annual emissions from two average UK houses (8.0 tonnes)

11 hours of production would fill the TV Centre doughnut

Bringing the Royal College of Music carbon management plan to life

This image shows a playful way of depicting the scale of carbon reduction laid out in the Carbon Management Plan. The reduction could be likened to removing 22 keys from a piano. It is not a volumetric representation.

This image shows the annual and projected CO2 emissions if the carbon management plan is successful.

This image shows per person emissions since 2005/6 and target reductions to 2013/14. The shaded area indicates Business as Usual.

This image shows emissions for 2005/6 and BAU / reduction target for 2013/14

The Royal College of Music worked with the Carbon Trust to develop a Carbon Management Plan, which was published in July 2010. The Plan highlighted a number of actions that could be taken to reduce emissions by 25% by 2013/14.

A key part of the Plan was to get students and staff engaged in the issues, so Carbon Visuals were invited to find innovative ways to communicate the carbon footprint and emissions reduction targets.

It was a very worth while project and has been a well recieved way of getting this difficult message across

Matthew Nicholl, Building Project Manager, Royal College of Music

To turn abstract numbers into quantities that viewers could relate to physically, we used a depiction of the College building. We also proposed a way for musicians in particular to gauge a 25% reduction – it’s like losing nearly two octaves from a piano.

Some of these images are being used for posters, leaflets and presentations to help staff and students have a better understanding of their carbon footprint and create ‘ownership’ of reduction plans and targets.

Making sense of a BBC programme's carbon footprint

BBC One Planet's annual emissions as a tower of 10-tonne cubes (actual volume of gas).

BBC One Planet's annual emissions as a tower of 10-tonne cubes (actual volume of gas).

BBC One Planet's annual emissions as a pile of 1 tonne cubes of gas.

BBC One Planet's annual carbon footprint as a sphere of carbon dioxide gas.

BBC One Planet's average daily carbon footprint (actual volume).

BBC One Planet's average emissions per second. Visualising rates of emission on very small timescales, as here, allows viewers to see the emissions as dynamic.

The One Planet radio programme on the BBC's World Service came to Carbon Visuals with simple question: "what does our carbon footprint look like?"

One Planet was carefully accounting for emissions arising from the making of the programme and had arrived at a figure of about 34.9 tonnes per year. But what does that mean?

Measuring carbon dioxide in terms of mass (tonnes) makes sense from an accounting point of view but doesn't give us a sense of scale we can relate to. We examined a variety of alternative ways of representing One Planet's footprint.

We have shown the programme's annual emissions by volume in a recognisable location and in relation to an iconic feature - Trafalgar Square and Nelson's Column. These provide a sense of scale that enable the viewer to relate to the volume.

You can hear a discussion about this project, first broadcast on Thursday 8 April 2010, by visiting the One Planet website.

Engaging employees at the Guardian News and Media Group

Guardian News and Media's daily carbon dioxide emissions. 

Close up view of Guardian News and Media's daily emissions, which shows the scale of the 1-tonne cubes

Guardian News and Media's daily carbon dioxide emissions - 39 tonnes.

The Guardian News and Media Group turned to Carbon Visuals to get employees involved in reducing the company’s carbon footprint. On an average day between April 2007 and March 2008, GNM emitted 39 tonnes: 20 tonnes from two print sites, 14 tonnes from offices and five tonnes from business travel.

The Guardian offices are near St Pancras Station - a landmark that employees can relate to physically. Viewers can see the picture and know what such a pile of one tonne cubes would be ‘like’.

Guardian News and Media's daily carbon dioxide emissions. On an average day between April 2007 and March 2008, GNM emitted 39 tonnes: 20 tonnes from 2 print sites,14 tonnes from the old offices and 5 tonnes from business travel. One tonne of carbon dioxide gas would fill a cube of 8.12 metres high. Viewing the pile of 1-tonne cubes from eye-level can give a viewer a better sense of the height.

Helping local government involve all staff in emissions reduction

Daily domestic CO2(e) emissions per-capita in Central Bedfordshire in 2007 (actual volume of gas)

CO2(e) emissions per-capita in Central Bedfordshire in 2007 (actual volume of gas)

CO2(e) emissions in Central Bedfordshire in 2007 (actual volume of gas)

Central Bedfordshire Council CO2(e) emissions target for 2050 compared with 2007 emissions

Central Bedfordshire Council needed a way to involve key stakeholders and staff in meeting targets for emissions reduction. We produced volumetric visualisations that make reference to landmarks and areas that these audiences can relate to.

We also produced animations that bring the figures to life by showing the emissions from different council activities in real-time. The Council used the visualisations in a stakeholder conference but they also found them useful for new employees, strategy documents, and the Council’s website.

These visualisations are a huge breakthrough and will enable people to clearly see the impact our carbon emissions are having on the environment and the level of responsibility that falls on each one of us to assess and change our activities.

Councillor Richard Stay, Deputy Leader, Central Bedfordshire Council

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).

Global CO2 emissions in real time

How can you give people some sense of the rate at which we are adding emissions to the atmosphere?

Using 2010 data, we calculated that at standard pressure and 15oC the mean rate of emissions for that year would fill a volume the size of the UN Secretariat Building roughly seven times every four seconds. Working with our associate Lucy Blackwell we created a simple experimental low resolution animation which we have shown to live audiences on numerous occasions.

Some people find it “breath-taking”.