An Overview Of Our Solution
Ireland is failing in its response to Climate Change and is the second-worst performing EU member state in tackling
climate change and will not reach its 2020 targets under the Paris agreement and faces fines of up to €500Million. The
Cool Planet Experience (CPE) has a mission to educate, engage and inspire the public on all areas of climate change
and awareness. Although concern about global environmental change has never been greater there is a fairly low level
of knowledge and uncertainty about the basic scientific concepts that underpin this area. We aim to catalyse, inspire and
guide the best in science, technology, engineering and math’s (STEM) education and public engagement in this area.
Our core value is to offer a transformative and creative approach to climate education and awareness, through our
centre, CPE STEM Curriculurm and outreach offer.
- Population Impacted: to date 7000
- Continent: Europe
Last name
Organization type
Context Analysis
Ireland is a small country but with big issues and the public are not informed on how to take action. Public awareness
has grown, helped by extreme events such as Hurricane Ophelia, Storm Emma and current extended summer drought.
People are experiencing the challenges presented such as water shortages, food insecurity (animal fodder
crisis)However, people do not know what they can do individually to effect change that will have a positive impact. CPE
addresses this lack of understanding and action by not only highlighting the solutions but also engaging the public so
they can adopt better behaviours that will have a positive effect on reducing our emissions. The CPE STEM curriculum
supports the Irish Governments vision to develop a knowledge based economy. They recognize that scientific literate
citizens make well-informed decisions regarding major global issues such as climate change.
Describe the technical solution you wanted the target audience to adopt
CPE provides the opportunity to communicate the challenge in a novel, fun and engaging way. We want people leaving
CPE to feel inspired and informed that they know what they can do to make the necessary changes. Behaviour change
is difficult and we aim to make it simple by providing people with easy options for them to positively impact on our
environment.CPE appeals to all ages, children, families and corporate market. Our STEM educatioin is linked to school
curriculum making it easily accessible for teachers. Our outreach Cool Planet Champions are taking climate action in 26
different communities reaching over 4000 people directly and indirectly. They are part of the national dialogue set up by
Government to engage and motivate people on climate action. Our corporate programme builds enagement of
employees within companies and CP Convince works directly with companies to solving sustainablity issues in an
innovative way involving research, e.g packaging for fruit.
Type of intervention
Describe your behavioral intervention
In Ireland, a poll by the Irish Independent found that 75% felt that the problem of climate change was very serious, with
only 8% saying it wasn’t serious at all. The poll also found that individuals were the second most responsible for tackling
the issue after local authorities and state agencies.
However, there is concern that the public no longer hears the negative messages on climate change – the impacts of
which seem too large to comprehend and too far from their day to day reality. People are busy with their own lives, work
and family and its not easy to comprehend or access the small steps or solutions that they can do to have any real
meaningful impact on climate change.
At CPE our intention is to make behaviour change to a more sustainable way of living simple. By appealing to people in a
way that resonates with their everyday lives and by positioning that change as something that’s easy and beneficial to
them and to the planet.
As needed, please explain the type of intervention in more detail
Emotional Appeals - We emotionally connect individually with each visitor through our powerful installations especially
those showing the impact of climate change now, however we do this to motivate you to take action.
Social Incentives – all aspects of the experience involve you as part of a group to ensure a 'collective' yet individual
experience.
Choice architecture – all of our materials and our experience at CPE is designed for all ages from 7 years to 90 years
old. We use plenty of visual iconography to make understanding of the material simple and clear
Describe your implementation
1) is our physical experience where we take you on a journey through climate change for an hour that is interactive,
engaging and fun. This journey last an hour and visitors get to understand the impact of climate change now, both
nationally and more globally. The science as to why warming is happening, what greenhouse gases are, the role of our
oceans and forests. The solutions and technologies we have now, that if we were to adopt would transform our energy,
waste and transport systems and the food and our food choices and the impact that has on our planet. This brings a
greater understanding which enables our visitors to make pledges to what they can do themselves that will reduce their
emissions.
(2) Outreach
(a) Education Programme for primary and secondary schools linked to the school curriculum with a bespoke
transition year engagement offering. This curriculum is unique to CPE. The CPE is completely aligned with the Irish
Governments vision to develop a knowledge based economy. They recognise that scientific literate citizens make wellinformed
decisions regarding major global issues such as climate change
(b) Cool Planet Champions – building a corps of passionate volunteers to take climate action across the country
spreading our message from board room, to class room to the kitchen table.
3) Corporate
(a) Cool Planet Convince – working with companies to find innovative solutions to their business model that will make
them more sustainable and reduce their carbon footprint
(b) Corporate workshops – working with companies and their employees on team building initiatives with sustainability,
innovation and protection of the planet at the heart of all activities.
Our 3 pillars engage you in the simple solutions to climate change to help you move to a lower carbon footprint.
External connections
Our partners in the initial phase were all Irish based companies who wanted to take a leadership position in the area and
not wait for government to follow. They are Vodafone, Crowley Carbon, ESB, NTR Foundation, Calor, Siemens and
Powerscourt Estate. All supported us financially to build and create the physical experience. Additionally, they have
supported us with the content development and through their vast networks support our message. The EPA supports our
Champions programme, we are working with county councils on building climate awareness with staff, we have
academic support from 4 Irish universities on content and support & Independent News and Media are our media partner
who are the largest media organisation in Ireland. We have also been working with Science Foundation Ireland, SEAI,
Birdwatch Ireland and Friends of the Earth Ireland. CPE is able to bridge corporate and not for profit Ireland & has reach
into state bodies that’s mission relates to the transition to a zero carbon emissions future.
Who adopted the desired behaviors and to what degree?
All of our visitors on arrival complete a carbon footprint calculator. All footprints are calculated into the number of trees
they would need to plant to offset the size of their carbon emissions. These calculations are based on a series of
questions we ask them around their life, their travel and transport, their home and energy use, their food choices and
waste and just ‘stuff’ in their lives. This information is then tapped or ‘loaded’ up into their RFID card in a bracelet that
they are given as their entry ticket. At the end of their journey through the Cool Planet Experience, they are offered a
chance to ‘pledge’ to make reductions in their own personal footprint under transport, energy and food. Over 95% of our
visitors have pledged to make positive changes. Equally, our Champions are out taking climate actions in their community – they have made personal changes which are resulting in many others now understanding the behavioural changes they need to adopt too.
How did you impact natural resource use and greenhouse gas emissions?
To date (we opened March 2018) we have directly impacted 6,000 individuals and reached a further 4,000 through our
experience, school workshops, corporate events, champions acts of leadership and talks. This does not include our
reach via media such as interviews on radio, TV, newspaper and online plus our social media.
Of those who go through our experience, 95% of them are making a pledge and on average their pledge will save 45
trees each. The average footprint is 12,077KG so these pledges on average are saving a tonne per lifetime of a tree. So
45 tonnes of carbon per person if they make those small changes to their footprint. Our target this year is to reach
45,000 people by March 2019 which on average should mean our Cool Planet visitors will save over 2million tonnes of
carbon by year end!!
What were some of the resulting co-benefits?
CPE is providing climate change ‘training’ to local authorities and companies for their staff to ‘upskill’ on the issue.
Recently a delegation from the EU Environmental Protection Agency visited the Cool Planet and stated that what we are
doing is the ‘best’ thing they have ever seen on communicating this issue. We have been asked to speak at conferences,
most recently Climate Reality with AL Gore in Berlin.
In our location at Powerscourt, our presence has influenced a number of the businesses that share our location.
Powerscourt Estate. They have introduced a number of measures wilding fields, bee hives, ending of Oil energy. Equally
others are using compostable packing and promoting vegan/vegetarian diets.
Sustainability
To set up CPE we required support from corporate Ireland and philanthropy to fund the operations and capital
expenditure required to build the first CPE. We have received some small grant support for specific activities however we
do need to make it self sustainable. We are working to do this through ticket sales, workshops for schools and corporates
and corporate support for Cool Planet Convince. To support this, we are investing in our marketing activities to build our
brand recognition and reputation. We will for the first 2 years continue to require either grant or sponsorship support.
Return on investment
As stated, we are only open since March 2018. The budget for CPE for 3 years (operating and capex) is €3Million.
How could we successfully replicate this solution elsewhere?
We have just signed an MOU to replicate CPE in Dubai with a large Emirate company. It will be operated by CPE,
however will be a separate entity. IT will be four times the size of CPE Ireland with the potential to reach up to 20million
people based on its location. We will replicate our approach by including our specific curriculum linked school’s
workshops and are also considering how to roll out our champions and CPE Convince programme.
There are plans to replicate in Sydney and UK too.
We are also training a 2nd cohort of Champions in Nov 2018 and will build out our outreach offer through local county
councils.