A Brooklyn Digital Foundry pro bono initiative.
Early in the pandemic, our studio recognized coverage had – understandably – lost sight of the more gradual, yet no less urgent, existential threat of global warming. We set to work, leveraging our experience at the intersection of sustainability and architecture to highlight the construction industry’s role in our changing climate.
Working across our interdisciplinary team, and supported by input from climate and sustainability leaders from organizations including the World Green Building Council, the United Nations, the Rocky Mountain Institute, and Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM), we produced a campaign to raise awareness, drive engagement, and stimulate the policies needed to keep our planet livable.
Building Better Climate A campaign to keep our planet livable.
7 partner organizations
21,000 points of engagement
15,000 total views
Section 1.Developing the narrative
Our strategists and copywriters dove into research, surveying academic publications, scientific journals, and diverse media sources to build the framework for our story. We established a rigorous editorial process and cross-referenced materials to validate data points, carefully stitching story points into a compelling, accurate narrative.
Trusted sources
In today’s distributed media landscape, it can be challenging to verify information. We started with reliable organizations and institutions, then verified each insight.
Section 2.Building partnerships
To deepen our understanding of the complex subject matter, and to vet our initial narrative, we connected with leaders in the construction, design, and sustainability fields. These experts graciously shared their time and wisdom with us through a series of remote interviews conducted by our in-house content team, helping us further shape and refine our story.
Stronger together
We’re thankful for the support of our contributing partners – the World Green Building Council, the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat, the Rocky Mountain Institute, Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM), the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, the University of Leeds, and the University of Colorado.
Accounting for almost 40% of global energy-related carbon emissions, the building and construction sector has a huge role to play in determining the future of our climate. Brooklyn Digital Foundry's Building Better Climate campaign reinstates a powerful message – to protect our planet and our future, we need to make construction more sustainable.
Creative solutions
Working at the peak of the pandemic, travel and location shoots weren’t possible. We embraced that challenge, working to set up, support, and direct remote video shoots – making the interview subjects feel comfortable so they could focus on sharing their knowledge.
Section 3.Creating compelling visuals
Our in-house computer-generated visualization (CGI) team worked alongside our content team every step of the way, developing unique treatments and workshopping creative ways to represent powerful data points.
Building the brand
We crafted a signature identity to unify promotional efforts across web and social media.
Section 4. Driving awareness & engagement
Driving awareness & engagement
To extend the reach of the video and campaign, we connected with contributing partners as well as aligned organizations and individuals. We shared press releases, copy snippets, pre-populated social assets, and custom social templates to make it easy for anyone to participate. Together with partners, influencers, and engaged activists, we leveraged network effects to dramatically scale distribution.
