Engagement

Engagement

Meaningful engagement isn't a checkbox to tick, it's an ongoing relationship that requires trust, transparency, and genuine commitment to sharing power.

How do you turn community input into real change?

A city planner once called us with a problem: "We need to create a climate action plan, but no one shows up to our meetings. And when they do, it's just the usual suspects yelling at each other. How do we actually hear from people? More importantly - how do we get them to stop fighting and start solving?"

They weren't alone. From Indigenous Nations navigating energy transitions…to utilities like Sydney Water (Australia) trying to convince residents that yes, they really would need to drink recycled water…to neighborhood groups getting doors slammed in their faces when proposing energy retrofits…we kept seeing the same story.

Officials needed better data. Communities wanted real agency. And everyone just wanted to feel invited to the conversation…not lectured at. So we threw out the old playbook. We became conversation architects, designing engagements where communities had their say and their say became policy.

Impact Chronicle #1: Urban and Rural Climate Action and Community Energy Plans

Interactive climate planning dashboards and community workshops.

The Challenge

  • Making data stop feeling like homework
  • Turning conflict into collaboration
  • Creating plans with real world impact, not just shelf life
  • Helping neighbourhoods with collective action

Meeting the Challenge

We transform dense IPCC reports into interactive dashboards where communities could create their own climate action plans using a familiar budgeting tool. Instead of top-down mandates, people decide which emissions cuts work best for their communities; balancing feasibility, cost, and local priorities.

But tools alone don't drive engagement, so we:

  • Seeded the conversation through targeted social campaigns that mirrored local values
  • Amplified trust by partnering with amplifying the voices of community anchors who gave the tool credibility beyond "another app"
  • Blended digital and analog tactics, which often resulted in locals direct participation where they could see their inputs reflected in real-time modeling
The magic happened when a rural mayor could point to her town's solar priority and say, "This isn't my idea; it's what 82% of you chose when we tested the trade-offs."

Our work also helped test incentives (carrots versus sticks) and gave people the ability to, alongside their neighbours, tell 'city hall' how they'd like to drive change.

The Results

  • Helped 25+ Cities and Rural communities across North America adopt Climate Action Plans and Community Energy and Emissions Plans with broad support from the people of the community with policy solutions that minimize polarization
  • Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of Greenhouse gas emissions avoided

Impact Chronicle #2: Cool Neighbourhoods

Cool Neighbourhoods retrofit events and street gatherings.

In our Cool Neighbourhoods project, homeowners joined together to work on ways to both lower their GHG emissions and create more resilient neighborhoods.

The Challenge

Most homeowners wanted to cut emissions but didn't know where to start; or found the process overwhelming, expensive, or just plain boring.

Meeting the Challenge

We made it social, simple, and fun. Neighbourhoods hosted dinners, potlucks, and thermal imaging events (with help from local fire departments) where they saw real-time heat leaks in their homes and learned how to fix them. Residents shared volunteer contractors. We arranged for group discounts on heat pumps, windows, solar panels and electric motors. And neighbourhoods became more resilient and less energy intensive.

The Results

  • 27+ neighbourhoods engagedFrom one pilot in West Vancouver to a network stretching across the North Shore, Bowen Island and Squamish, B.C.
  • 520+ households taking actionHomes became more energy efficient and resilient to heatwaves and weather events
  • 8,257 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions cutsProving small steps add up
  • Media to UN recognition2.9 million impressions, Royal Roads White Paper, Presentation at the UN

Impact Chronicle #3: Indigenous Energy Sovereignty

Community-led clean energy planning in remote Indigenous communities.

The Challenge

Remote Indigenous communities relied on expensive, polluting diesel generators. Transitioning to renewables was possible but only if led by the communities themselves.

Meeting the Challenge

We supported Nation-designed plans that integrated clean energy with housing, transport, and cultural priorities.

Example: The Heiltsuk Climate Action Team created plans for everything from community transportation to home heating and marine electrification; all with the goal in mind of training local crews and exporting their 'lessons learned' to other communities.

The Results

  • The process educated and engaged the community to ensure ownership of their collective climate action work
  • Communities created their own plans to reach goals, many involving eliminating diesel
  • Each solution scored for difficulty, jobs created, wellbeing, community support, risk and innovation
  • A blueprint for Indigenous-led transitions created for other Nations across Canada

Impact Chronicle #4: Emergency Preparedness

Community crisis planning for drought, wildfire and pandemic response.

The Challenge

In crises - droughts, pandemics, wildfires - communities fracture. Blame spreads faster than solutions. Officials need public trust to act, but top-down mandates often backfire.

Meeting the Challenge

We designed crisis engagements that replaced fear with agency:

  • Sydney Water (Australia)When fires and seawater contamination crashed the water supply, we helped residents understand the situation and tell their city government how they wanted to move forward; shifting "no way" to "why not sooner?"
  • Alberta COVID ResponseInstead of debating "freedom vs. rules," we hosted forums where small businesses, citizens and skeptics alike shaped safety measures and their own path towards a safer city
  • Jasper (Canada)For wildfire prep, the town mapped all residents; including transient foreign workers; via community networks (landlords, cafes, churches). When fire hit, everyone was reachable

The Results

  • Faster, fairer crisis responsePlans worked because the "unreachable" were already engaged
  • Less polarizationWhen people help design solutions, compliance isn't forced, it's chosen

Impact Chronicle #5: Harnessing the power of pop culture to drive real-world impact

Campaign work with actors, musicians and studios.

The Challenge

How do you make climate action viral? Policy papers don't trend but culture does.

Meeting the Challenge

We infiltrated the creative bloodstream of pop culture and partnered with studios, influencers, producers/directors/writers, networks, actors and musicians to create change with computers, TVs, movie theatres and headphones. We

  • Helped A-listers become climate messengers at rallies and on red carpets
  • Wove environmental truths into lyrics, scripts, and even casual dialogue
  • Transformed concert seats into fundraising tools and blue recycling bins into unspoken TV props
  • Worked with groups like ECO to embed climate into culture

The Results

  • 70% tuna sales crash after that single dolphin line in Lethal Weapon (girl scolds her on-screen dad for eating tuna: 'Dolphins die in those nets!') that turned driftnet fishing into a PR disaster. Proof that art can wreck bad industries.
  • 200+ million impressions from PSA campaigns starring musicians and actors fans already loved.
  • Recycling bins became background actors in top shows, normalizing sustainability without a single lecture.

These stories share one thread: People support what they help create. Whether it's a city plan or a home retrofit, the best solutions emerge when communities lead; not just "give feedback."

"Watching a local official flip through a 30-page report of citizen-generated solutions and mutter: 'Why the hell don't they ever give us ideas this good at public hearings?'" The Real Magic Moment

Our Engagement Principles

  • Start with respect
  • Design for inclusion
  • Make complexity accessible
  • Focus on solutions
  • Follow through on commitments
  • Build lasting relationships

Ready to Engage Differently?

Let's design an engagement process that actually works for your community and your goals.