EDF+Business and its parent organization, the Environmental Defense Fund, sought to turn corporate climate pledges into concrete climate action. To do so, they needed to create a tool that organized an incredible breadth of resources, roadmaps, and strategies that companies could use to reach net zero emissions—and they needed to do so on an accelerated timeline to launch at Climate Week 2023. Together, we created the Net Zero Action Accelerator, an accessible website and digital tool that helps sustainability experts and implementation strategists chart their organizations’ paths to net zero.
To create a complex digital tool capable of helping business leaders across industries reduce emissions, we needed to understand two key things. How does EDF+Business’ Net Zero Value Chains team work with corporate partners to develop and implement net zero strategies? And how can the Net Zero Action Accelerator (NZAA) provide the guidance and flexibility they need to inform their company’s plans. To learn more about both these things and more, we interviewed EDF+Business leadership to understand how NZAA can help them attract the right audiences, engage stakeholders, and build lasting relationships with corporate decision makers.
Working closely with EDF+Business’ team, our strategists immersed themselves into the myriad of systems and environmental scopes that businesses must navigate to accelerate their net zero priorities. Our takeaway? The Net Zero Action Accelerator would need to be a highly accessible, actionable, and customizable digital tool to guide sustainability experts through complex decarbonization processes, step-by-step. It also would need to be a holistic part of EDF’s brand while also projecting an image that is more aligned with the sensibilities of corporate decision makers. Our digital strategy created the guide for EDF+Business and our team to co-create a new online platform to accelerate net zero action.
As with most digital products, creating user stories was essential to making sure that every interaction would produce the intended results. We charted every possible pathway that the Net Zero Action Accelerator Tool offered—laying a foundation of NZAA Action Steps that guide visitors as they customize the strategy that they believe their companies will be able to adopt. The result is a system of customizable pathways to net zero that are determined by each person’s unique situation and needs, making it easy for visitors to understand and then identify the actionable steps they can take to reduce emissions and more quickly achieve net zero.
The EDF+Business Net Zero Action Accelerator needed to balance the needs of audiences with greater and lesser expertise in decarbonization practices and net zero strategies. With our strategy and user stories in place, our UX team worked with EDF+Business to develop content strategy that orients new audiences to what EDF+Business has to offer as a partner and what the NZAA makes possible, and also moves more advanced audiences into putting the tool to work immediately. Together, we created a blueprint that frames the Net Zero Action Accelerator within EDF+Business’ mission, communicates the value they have to offer corporate sustainability leaders, and helps users effortlessly create comprehensive actionable pathways to net zero for their companies.
In order to earn the trust of business leaders and sustainability implementation specialists, The Net Zero Action Accelerator needed to quickly communicate credibility and leadership on a complicated issue. With clean design, strategic minimalism, and visual cues that evoke the Environmental Defense Fund parent brand, the Net Zero Action Accelerator emphasizes intuitive, highly responsive design that delivers results, clear, accessible information, and interactive helpers throughout to provide context and guide visitors as they explore what the NZAA has to offer.
Product design for the Net Zero Action Accelerator demonstrates how a digital tool can help industry make meaningful progress on systemic climate solutions.
Designing a digital tool based on assumptions—no matter how well informed—leaves out the experiences of the people who actually use it. To make sure that the Net Zero Action Accelerator would deliver as promised, we leaned on feedback from our most important stakeholder: actual users. On a rapid schedule to be ready in time for Climate Week, we created a beta website and integrated behavioral analytics tools—then soft launched it months in advance to test and optimize design. Each step of the multi-tiered user testing process provided invaluable insight into how audiences used the NZAA, which we then used to iterate and optimize UX and UI design to maximize engagement, minimize drop off, and increase usability.
The crux of the Net Zero Action Accelerator is the breadth of customizable filters to help users find the right pathways for their decarbonization needs. The pathways greet users by asking them to identify their goals, and from there, the filters lead users to pathways that guide decision makers through the action steps and resources.
With 25 of pathway pages, each providing between three and seven action steps and corresponding resources, users are given customized tools to move their organization toward net zero. Each action step has guidance text and resources that users can add and save to their dashboards as they chart their path to net zero.
For years, the climate and industry experts at EDF+Business have built an expansive library of resources and tools to help guide organizations on their decarbonization journeys. Now, the resources hub of the Net Zero Action Accelerator makes those vital tools easily accessible and approachable with content like articles, trainings, videos, documents, and more.
“We needed to organize a huge amount of information into an accessible tool on an accelerated timeline. From website strategy and project management to design and user experience, the Constructive team’s expertise was critical for creating this engaging, impactful website. The team’s talent, thoughtfulness, and kindness made them feel like an extension of my team.”
Ellen Shenette, Net Zero Accelerator Director
