UBC Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability

Problem/Need:
CIRS, North America’s greenest building, intended to be a benchmark for other high-performance buildings is UBC’s flagship in sustainability. It had complex communications needs to engage stakeholders across municipal, provincial and federal governments and energy, architectural, academic, technology sectors worldwide. CIRS had to exemplify the principals of sustainability and its communications had to build relationships with partners and industry leaders.

Strategy/Methodology:
Rather than simply focusing on green aspects, the plan identified the building’s transformational features that have societal impacts. This was the foundation for conversations with donors, community developers, energy and built environment sectors as well as faculty and students.

Solution/Contribution
Using UBC’s strategic plan and a discovery session with senior leadership as a guideline, we created a communications plan that was a road map to advance UBC’s global reputation through:

• mainstream media,
• the digital eco-system,
• academic conferences and
• development initiatives.

We conceptualized and supervised a video that asked “what if a building had a soul?” which was used widely by senior VPs and Directors in presentations.

Results/Impact:
UBC’s long-term capacity to communicate sustainability goals and achievements improved and gained vision. In addition to the plan, we developed several platforms to engage critical audiences.

Assets we created included:

• vision and values,
• the social media campaign with an award winning video used by senior leadership across faculties and departments to demonstrate UBC’s sustainability leadership,
• a resource of images, digital and print materials,
• framework for positioning messages and building out future messages,
• Powerpoint presentation and
• trade show and environmental signage.