Land conservation for a more climate-resilient future.
Every year, millions of acres of forests and grasslands are destroyed by wildfires and other natural disasters. As a result, family ranchers, Tribal Nations, and local forest owners are under increasing pressure to sell their land to developers if they’re unable to restore it. For landowners, the land holds deep cultural, familial, civic, and natural significance. The Climate Trust offers an opportunity for them to leverage the power of nature to conserve their land, effectively combating climate change and preserving it for future generations—all while creating revenue for landowners.
Challenge
The Climate Trust was founded in 1997 as the very first carbon offset fund in the nation, designed to support projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As a well-respected nonprofit and leader in nature-based climate solutions, it develops, funds, and manages carbon offset projects. The Climate Trust works directly with ranchers, forest owners and managers, land trusts, and Tribal nations to conserve their land, creating new revenue streams from carbon offsets.
To be successful in its mission, The Climate Trust needs to build trust with landowners. Attitudes toward climate change differ across its audiences, and The Climate Trust knows how to connect with people on shared values, and in a very personal way. By channeling its ability to develop trusted relationships into a new brand identity, messaging, and website, the Climate Trust would be able to bring a human touch to its relationships with landowners.
But it’s not just landowners whose trust they need to earn. Carbon offset credits have been subject to scrutiny, with a large number of projects around the world failing to prevent deforestation or actually distribute money to landowners. The Climate Trust’s nonprofit status, its partnerships with regulatory agencies and the USDA, and its transparent process all help build trust among buyers of carbon offset credits.
Connecting with Landowners
In our research and interviews, we heard about The Climate Trust’s approach and process, and we also heard about the different experiences working with the organization. As part of the Brand Strategy, we helped The Climate Trust capture the values that guided these experiences and their approach, and wove them into everything they do—especially when it comes to building relationships.
The Climate Trust’s Values:
- Our audiences are landowners, not shareholders.
- Connect with people through shared values rather than change anyone’s beliefs about climate change.
- Acknowledge, celebrate, and empower good land stewards.
- Lead with the human impact of carbon projects, and follow with the climate impact.
- Always honor the land.
While climate resilience will always be at the heart of The Climate Trust’s reason for being, its new brand story tells a story that transcends science and instead, speaks to the universal truth felt among all of its audiences: a deep connection between people and land.
INSIGHT
Landowners care more about land than ideology.
The voices and experiences of landowners are very much the voice of The Climate Trust‘s brand: They tell the story of protecting the connection between people and the land, not simply urgent climate solutions. One interviewee stressed the importance of land stewardship, family, and faith as his motivation for starting a carbon project with The Climate Trust. His ranch had been in his family for five generations and he worried about the changing landscape, but eventually he shared that he wasn’t sure if he believed in climate change at all.
This open conversation and moment of vulnerability ended up being a tipping point for the project. Whether or not one believes in climate change isn’t important to The Climate Trust. Even when speaking with climate experts, one common value was held above all else: a deep, personal connection to the land and all that it provides.
Information Architecture & User Experience
We developed a simple information architecture, user experience, and website design that elevates The Climate Trust’s mission in a clear way, addresses the unique benefits of carbon projects for diverse audiences, highlights their nonprofit status, creates space for news and updates, and features the stories of real projects around the country.
After launch, we developed the buying experience for individual carbon offset buyers. This allows individuals to purchase up to 250 carbon offset credits directly through the website. Users can select a real carbon project, learn about it, and purchase credits verified by the Climate Action Reserve or the American Carbon Registry.
My Role:
- Develop the plan for how we would approach research, discovery, strategy, and the design of the website and oversee its implementation.
- Contributor to and manager of the brand and website assessment phase, helping establish a baseline for where the organization is today, where it is going in the future, and what goal progress looks like.
- Oversight and contributor to interviews, surveys, peer research, and workshops and contributed to building insights from the data.
- Co-author of the Brand Strategy, positioning, and messaging platform.
- Oversight and strategist for the development of the sitemap, information architecture, and the user experience design for the responsive website.
- Principal strategist leading the development of user flows, user experience design, and the backend inventory management for the e-commerce functionality, allowing individuals to purchase carbon offset credits for projects being led by The Climate Trust.
Other Contributors:
- The agency’s design team created a new logo and identity system, as well as mockups for the website.
- The agency’s engineering team developed the website on WordPress and connected Stripe for the e-commerce functionality while also developing a backend portal for managing carbon offset credit inventory.
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