Climate Action Simulation

Seven tips for finding an audience for your En-ROADS events

June 27, 2022 By Bindu Bhandari

Are you interested in leading an experience using the En-ROADS Climate Solutions Simulator, but are unsure how to find an audience for your event? If that’s the case, we have got you covered! Below you can read through our seven tips for finding an audience for your En-ROADS events.

1. Find a connector

If you are looking to reach broader audiences, try to engage with individuals who are connected to people outside of your network. Introduce them to En-ROADS and ask if they know others who might benefit from an En-ROADS event. Many people have never seen anything like En-ROADS, and so a short demo can spark ideas or get them excited about what you can offer to their network. This strategy has been particularly effective in reaching out to decision-makers in our experience. We look for someone who can introduce us, rather than just knocking on the door of a top leader who we do not know. Remember, En-ROADS events do not always have to be formal. We have run a number of En-ROADS workshops during lunches, at retreats, or during informal receptions. Sometimes, the events are as short as 15 minutes, but this can still spark ideas and open up productive conversations.

2. Reach out to your local institutions

No matter where you live, every community has a wide range of local institutions, organizations, and clubs established to meet varying social, economic, humanitarian, or religious pursuits. Even if you don’t have memberships or affiliation to these institutions, many are welcoming new projects and event ideas from guests.

Perhaps the easiest way to reach out to an organization is through the contact numbers provided on their website or through social media. You are most likely to find an opportunity to present En-ROADS, however, if you can first connect with someone who is associated with the institution.

Some of these institutions include:

i. Service groups – An example would be Rotary International. Rotary is an international humanitarian organization that has over 46,000+ local clubs worldwide. Each Rotary club organizes diverse events and projects throughout the year and welcomes new event/project ideas. Recently Rotary International just added the environment as one of their 7 focus areas, and as a result, we have been seeing more and more En-ROADS events being run for Rotary members!

ii. Environmental networks/organizations – As an example, The Climate Reality Project (founded by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore) has trained tens of thousands of climate leaders worldwide. Some of our facilitators and En-ROADS Climate Ambassadors (ECAs) are among these trainees and have collaborated with local and regional chapters of the Climate Reality Project to facilitate En-ROADS events. For example, in Latin America, ECAs are partnering to do joint En-ROADS and Climate Reality events.

iii. Community user groups – There is a multitude of user groups around the world based on different themes, needs, or service types (e.g. Forest User Groups, Water User groups, and Saving and Credit cooperatives). Such user groups often hold meetings at regular intervals which might provide an opportunity to introduce them to En-ROADS.

iv. Youth clubs – An example would be Global Shapers Community, an initiative by the World Economic Forum focused on youth-led solutions and actions. The Global Shapers community has hubs in 148 countries around the world. En-ROADS could be of great interest to such clubs, just reach out to them and make an elevator pitch!

v. Sports clubs – At a glance, a sports club might not appear to be a group interested in hosting an En-ROADS event. But since climate change touches all our lives, increasingly people from all sectors seem keen to learn about ways to meaningfully address climate change. Thus, we encourage you to reach out to groups which don’t necessarily fall onto your potential audience list. We can say this because some of our facilitators have had great success in engaging the sports community!

Terry Muir Peninsula Kingswood Country Golf Club In Melbourne Australia April 2022

vi. Community libraries – Many communities around the world have public libraries that hold an array of public events. Did you know that some of our ambassadors have been facilitating En-ROADS events regularly at their community libraries? Now, it’s your turn to give it a try!

3. Contact your school alumni networks and clubs

Alumni networks have been a great asset for En-ROADS outreach. Drop an email introducing En-ROADS to your alumni network, or have friends connect you to their networks and express your availability to present En-ROADS. Be concise and straightforward in your approach.

Also, with increasing momentum for climate action globally, schools and universities are encouraging their students to establish environmental and sustainability clubs. Such clubs are always on the lookout for innovative tools and ideas to shape their knowledge and engagement. En-ROADS would definitely interest them.

4. Promote your event on social media

Social media can be a great way to increase the visibility of your event. We often see facilitators using LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook to promote their En-ROADS events. We understand it might not come naturally to self-promote your work on social media, but, there are ways to make the content informative and appealing. To enhance your post, try adding a fact or figure relevant to the issue or point you’re trying to make, and attach media (photo/video) to draw people’s attention. Use hashtags such as #EnROADS to increase the chances of your content being discovered by others on social media. Some have even had success experimenting with paid advertising on social media in some areas.

5. Brand your event for your audience

Branding can be as important as the delivery in some cases. Think about the audience that you are trying to reach and what they care about. Most often an emphasis on climate solutions or climate and equity will draw people in, but we have also seen En-ROADS events be shared as a way to “create your own future”, or “cultivate leadership skills”.

You don’t necessarily need to have En-ROADS in the title of your event. You can have your entire event centered around climate justice or transition to a green economy, and En-ROADS could still serve as one important tool in your toolkit. If you are planning to facilitate En-ROADS in a local language, it would be more relevant to have your event title in the local language.

6. Look out for special opportunities and occasions

Organizations and networks, regardless of their niche, will be planning to commemorate some of the widely celebrated international days such as Earth Day, Environment Day, Biodiversity Day etc. Capitalize on those dates and occasions to present En-ROADS. The key would be to reach out to potential partners and hosts ahead of time to make space for your event in their calendar.

7. Find your fit, be prepared, and stay flexible

The successful marketing of your En-ROADS event has three determining factors:

i. Finding your fit – Not all the available audiences or platforms might be the right fit for you. Of course, you are encouraged to reach out to diverse audience types as En-ROADS is a global simulator model that is used by people from all walks of life. But having clarity on which sectors (e.g., business, policymaking, education etc.) and audience types you best relate to will save you time in finding the right audience for your skills and expertise.

ii. Be prepared – Memorize your elevator pitch for En-ROADS. You never know when an opportunity might present itself for you to facilitate an En-ROADS event. Say, during your morning walk, you meet a CEO of a leading company interested in making their operations carbon neutral or a high school social teacher looking to make climate science more palatable for their students. You’d want to be prepared on what would be the first few sentences that might interest them to host a full-fledged En-ROADS workshop or game.

iii. Adapt to the needs of your audience – The En-ROADS Climate Workshop or the Climate Action Simulation game, the two most widely used group experiences with the En-ROADS simulator, might not always be what your potential audience is looking for. Sometimes you don’t have a full hour or more to work with so you may need to adapt your En-ROADS event to fit a smaller amount of time. Other times it will be important to spend time focusing on specific topics to suit a particular audience or facilitate events in the local language. Try to be flexible and cater for the needs and interests of your audience.

Please remember that despite your best intention, some of your efforts might not work out. And that’s okay! The best thing to remember is that you are doing all you can to make this world a better place for everyone. As Climate Interactive Executive Director Andrew Jones says, “It’s not going to be easy but it’s going to be worth it… go get ’em!”

4 Tips on Facilitating the Climate Action Simulation with En-ROADS

April 14, 2022 By Bindu Bhandari

My name is Kilian Woods and I’ve been an En-ROADS climate ambassador for over two years. I had the chance to facilitate a Climate Action Simulation in January 2022 together with Bindu Bhandari, Heathcliff Demaie, and Hiske Overweg to the engineering students of IIT Delhi.

The simulation lasted three hours and was a great experience. The goal of this role-playing game was to introduce the students to the En-ROADS simulator developed by Climate Interactive and MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative.

There were 8 groups composed of around 35 students. The groups were:

1. Climate Justice Hawks
2. Clean Tech
3. Conventional Energy
4. Industry & Commerce
5. Land, Agriculture, & Forestry
6. Developed Nations
7. Developing Nations
8. Emerging Nations

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The groups had to negotiate an agreement during the simulation.

After reflecting on the Climate Action Simulation with the engineering students from Delhi, I’ve come up with four tips that helped me whilst facilitating the Climate Action Simulation with En-ROADS.

1. Create a safe space where the participants can share their ideas

The participants can have diverging opinions on different topics, and it is important they feel safe to share their opinions. A way to facilitate this is by acknowledging that there are different opinions and hearing each of them without taking sides. For example, when mediating negotiations with the groups the facilitators can create breakouts where the groups can reflect about their proposals and invite other groups to join their breakout room.

2. Be clear about the purpose and the roles of each of the groups

The facilitators should aid the participants in reflecting on what their groups represent before the simulation. This could be done by providing each participant with a briefing statement about the groups and by doing an initial session with the participants to explain to them their roles for the UN summit.

There is also the possibility to create a longer program around a Climate Action Simulation in which the groups would meet before the negotiation to participate in sessions about negotiating, lobbying, and influencing. These workshops could be delivered in the form of seminars by guest speakers — such as, inviting negotiators that have attended UN Climate Summits to an event beforehand. Participants could also share their individual reflections about the seminars, such as through individual assignments followed by group discussions.

3. Make the participants feel like they are negotiators in a UN summit on climate change

The facilitators should stay true to the characters they are playing whilst helping the groups negotiate agreements. For example, have someone play the UN Secretary General and give a strong opening and ending speech during the Climate Action Simulation.

4. Accentuate a feeling of hopefulness about the emerging future to the participants

Facilitators should explain the urgency of finding solutions to the climate emergency whilst also inspiring the participants that they can contribute to the solutions. For example, during the closing speech, the UN Secretary-General should congratulate each of the groups for coming to an agreement.

The Climate Action Simulation creates a simulation of a UN summit that allows participants to examine their ideas and notions about opposing ideas on climate change action. For both participants and facilitators, it is a tool that allows you to improve your communication skills, which is important when negotiating, lobbying, or influencing leaders to take the actions necessary to implement solutions to climate change locally or globally. I was impressed by the outcome of the final agreement and the response of the participants at the Climate Action Simulation workshop with students from Delhi. I believe these four tips helped me in delivering this workshop and could help facilitators to deliver their Climate Action Simulation workshops.

Find more guidance and materials for facilitating the Climate Action Simulation at https://www.climateinteractive.org/climate-action-simulation/

5 tips for bringing justice and equity into En-ROADS events

April 5, 2022 By Bindu Bhandari

As the window of opportunity to climate-resilient development is swiftly closing, how do we ensure that climate justice and equity remain central to our actions and choices? At Climate Interactive, our En-ROADS simulator allows users to create and share scenarios to limit the rise of global average temperature. Below are some tips for bringing justice and equity into En-ROADS events.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has just released the final part of its sixth Assessment Report (AR6). Throughout the report there is emphasis that the choices we make in the next decade will be a deciding factor for our success or failure in achieving climate-resilient development. The urgency of the climate crisis demands solutions at a scale and pace unlike any other time. But the history and trends in the distribution of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, resulting impacts, and the capacity to adapt and respond to climate change vary substantially across communities and regions. At Climate Interactive, we envision a world where GHG emissions are falling rapidly with equitable policies. While there is a multitude of scenarios that meet this climate goal in En-ROADS, it is crucial that these scenarios are also ones that improve health, equity, and well-being while protecting the climate (known as, multisolving).

Here are 5 tips for bringing justice and equity into En-ROADS events:

1. Make climate justice the focus in marketing and how the event begins

This is basic yet one of the most effective ways, and recommended by many of our En-ROADS Climate Ambassadors. Marketing your workshop as a Climate Justice Workshop with En-ROADS, and starting with a question that puts justice and equity as the locus of the event instead of a subsidiary component is a great start to a deeper dive into the topic. An example of such a starter question would be: “Using the En-ROADS simulator, choose a high leverage solution that is effective in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and that also improves people’s health and well-being in the near term.” Then have people explain what they chose and why.

2. Show the impacts graphs

The impacts of climate change are (and will be) felt disproportionately around the globe. Referring to the impact graphs in En-ROADS helps people realize how avoiding every degree of warming matters. These graphs include things like:

Sea Level Rise–Flood Risk Map: Search for places and see the impact of sea-level rise
Decrease in Crop Yield from Temperature: See how crops will be impacted
Air Pollution from Energy by Source–PM2.5: Explore which actions best reduce air pollution

These graphs essentially translate otherwise abstract numeric goals (1.5°C or 2°C) to the actual implications in the lives and livelihoods of the billions of people at the forefront of climate change. It can also be a segue to discuss the need for sufficient climate financing, and for strengthening the adaptive capacity of communities that will be hit hardest by climate change impacts.

Unnamed 2 — Figure 2: Graphs in En-ROADS showing significant improvement in air quality (left) and considerable landmass saved (right) by taking actions to limit global warming to 2°C. Access this scenario here.

3. Discuss the cost of energy

As the world races to eradicate energy poverty and meet the growing energy demands of rapidly emerging markets, especially in the Global South, making sustainable energy sources accessible and affordable for everyone will be a daunting task. Some of the potentially high leverage climate solutions such as carbon price when implemented tend to increase the cost of energy significantly and can even aggravate existing inequalities. For example, in this En-ROADS scenario, a very high global carbon price of $150/ ton CO2 will dramatically increase the cost of energy in the next decade before it stabilizes in the latter half of the century. But the net revenue generated (up to 5 trillion $/year) could be used in various ways to help low-income households meet their energy needs and subsidize renewable energy, research and development for new zero-carbon energy sources. Allow your participants to brainstorm ideas that plan to help climate without hurting the most vulnerable.

Unnamed 3 — Figure 3 : Graphs in En-ROADS simulator displaying a sharp increase in energy costs as a result of the very high carbon price ( $150/ ton CO2) implemented globally starting 2022 (left) and net revenue generated from this policy action (right) with ever. Access this scenario here.

4. Don’t overlook land use

Depending on the usage, land can be both a source and a sink for greenhouse gases. Some of the nature-based and engineered land-based mitigation approaches such as bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) and large scale afforestation require vast amounts of land. This raises critical questions relating to the rights of indigenous people, biodiversity, and food security. Encourage your participants to also consider some of the limitations of such solutions. Land for Growing CO2 Removal Biomass graph is often particularly helpful to stir this discussion.

Unnamed 4 — Figure 4 : A scenario of attaining maximum afforestation, BECCS and biochar potential in En-ROADS simulator keeping everything else in the baseline scenario. Access this scenario here.

5. Tailor to the local knowledge and context

A key to facilitating meaningful En-ROADS events is to touch the hearts and minds of participants. For that purpose, it is essential that participants can relate the scenarios and outcomes in the simulator to their day to day lives. We recommend our En-ROADS users spend time mapping out some of the equity and justice considerations relevant to their particular communities and contexts. For example, I am from Nepal, the land of the Himalayas, so whenever I facilitate En-ROADS events here in Nepal, I make sure to explain how every degree of warming impacts our glaciers, freshwater availability, and the millions of livelihoods that depend on mountain ecosystems.

Bonus: There are abundant ways to incorporate climate justice and equity in En-ROADS. Our one-page guide on Equity Consideration for En-ROADS provides ideas for each of the 18 En-ROADS sliders (access it here). Also, check out our En-ROADS User Guide which lists equity considerations for each of the 18 En-ROADS sliders.

Let us know some of your favorite ways of incorporating equity and justice into En-ROADS events!

Running the Climate Action Simulation in Russia and beyond

July 29, 2021 By Caroline Reed

“Is that Vladimir Putin in the waiting room?” and other dynamic moments that can be part of the Climate Action Simulation…

We are the Living Lab, a Russia-based change agency specializing in interactive education on topics of climate change and sustainability. We all – Anastasia Laukkanen, Anna Sycheva, Alyona Yuzefovich – have a background in science and/or system thinking, so naturally En-ROADS was just a perfect fit. Such a perfect fit that in 6 months we played 15 games – first with Russian audiences, but lately – with “players” from Europe, the US, India, and Oceania.

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We probably don’t need to explain here that the Climate Action Simulation role-play game is a fantastic tool (and we almost always do games rather then workshops). It is informative, engaging and inspiring. Having played with both business and academia, some of the best feedback we had was: “What we – individually and as a team – understood about climate and how everything is interconnected, we wouldn’t be able to get from any reports” (this was from a CC head of marketing department of a big international company).

But what’s best about it is that it is fun. Or too fun, as a Russian participant said “The game is great. I learnt a lot. Facilitators were too entertaining though, don’t forget how serious the issue is.”

And it IS entertaining to participate and to host it. Here are some modifications we introduced to the game design that you could try (all of them are for the online games, but could be used offline as well).

3 rounds of negotiations

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We added a third round of negotiations very soon after starting to use the game. One of the very first participants familiar with the theory of game dynamics suggested it and we never got back to using 2 rounds, even if we had little time. Third round helps participants not to give up to the “common goal” of 1.5 degree, they know they still have time to protect their interests and fight more for it. And the fun part – people really getting into their roles – comes right with it.

Extra rooms

When there are many people playing the game, we add extra rooms during the 2nd and 3rd round. Extra rooms are “lobby,” “bar next door,” “corridors,” and “smoking room”. If there is crowd in some room, one participant can always say “Hey, let’s go talk business in the lobby, I have an offer for you!”. And it always sparks jokes (“We have been to your bar. Vodka is cheap and sandwiches are not fresh!”).

We have also created “central office” room for facilitators. Once a “world leader” came to us to try to lobby us: “Hey, I just came to offer, could we be last in the list of speakers?”.

Names

We encourage people not only to represent their sector with costumes and virtual backgrounds, but to pick a name and/or a company to identify with. And we give an example – the UN General Secretary is not only a title – she is Antonina Guterres. We call out Mr. Musk and Miss Thunberg, And very soon the heads of Gazprom, Rusal, and Nornikel are in the room, some of them cheekily putting green virtual backgrounds as an ultimate greenwashing move. The best is to find Vladimir Putin in the “waiting room” looking to join the game.

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We played with the most diverse international community together with Climate Interactive, but it is also interesting to notice some of the patterns that happen specifically with the Russian participants.

Carbon price

There were so many games where carbon price was never touched. It could be not mentioned at all or – in some cases – put at $50 and soon brought back to zero. It is connected with the Russian energy mix as carbon price would influence it a lot, but mainly, we believe, that this policy is still little understood. What is it, why is it important, and what are consequences except the rise of energy price – are questions that needs to be explained more.

Conventional energy conservatism

Many scenarios end up with oil and coal in the ground, but often without directly touching these levers. We noticed that many participants avoid taxing or limiting conventional energy sources knowing how much Russian economy depends on them. Without proper energy transition such limit could end up in a lot of social turbulence, so participants try to reach the 1.5 goal using any other levers available.

Who is the main guy in the room

It could be an international pattern, but we noticed that during negotiation rounds whoever plays roles of world leaders and heads of conventional energy inevitably turns into “big guys in suits”. They rarely go to other sectors to negotiate, as “everybody should come to us, shouldn’t they?”, as they explain to us. They listen to offers and suggestions, but they may break their promises after. Or they say “We are big bad guys, why would we negotiate?”, when we try to encourage them to leave their rooms. It is really interesting to see the same dynamics from game to game, regardless who exactly get this role.

Do you play the game a lot in your practice? What are your modifications? What are your insights about different audiences? How is it going for you? Looking forward to be in touch.

Your Russian team,

Anastasia Laukkanen, Anna Sycheva, Alyona Yuzefovich

Living Lab change agency

Dear Other En–ROADS Climate Ambassadors, Try The Game!

January 19, 2021 By Caroline Reed

It’s fun, and not as hard as you think

I’ve been an En-ROADS Climate Ambassador since March, and I always thought I’d be a “workshop-only” one. I ran my first workshop in my living room before the pandemic, and then I facilitated four or five Zoom workshops throughout the spring and summer.

In August, the Climate Interactive team emailed me and another ambassador about doing what we thought would be a workshop for an undergraduate environmental economics class based in Claremont, California. Upon learning more about the differences between the En-ROADS Climate Workshop and the Climate Action Simulation game, the professor and her assistant thought the game would be more interesting to their students.

I almost told them, “Oh, well I only run the workshop, so I’ll have to refer you to someone else to do the game,” but instead, I figured I might as well push myself to try it at least once. Why not, right?

I had plenty of time to prepare since the Climate Action Simulation game wasn’t until mid-November, and Climate Interactive’s facilitator guide provides really detailed instructions and even scripts to read from — I just tweaked them a little to fit the audience and sound more like me.

Now I can officially say I’m so glad I tried it, and I’m hooked! I have no acting experience aside from a few middle school plays and pretending with my kids, but I had a blast playing UN Secretary-General.

We played the game over two class sessions (a Monday and a Wednesday) with the second round of negotiations as homework in between, which worked out well. The students really took their roles seriously, their presentations were so passionate, and they asked great questions.

Their reactions to the game were different than the reactions I’d previously gotten to the workshop. The push and pull between the different sectors made some students more pessimistic about real-world negotiations, but I think it made the experience more immersive and memorable, just as their professor had anticipated. The overall reaction was positive, and many felt called to action.

My co-facilitator was absolutely wonderful — it’s so nice to someone else there to keep an eye on the chat box, jump in with additional information to answer questions, and of course to help with Zoom difficulties.

I look forward to facilitating more En-ROADS workshops AND games in the future, and I know you can too. You got this.

Running the Climate Action Simulation with MBA Students from Judge Business School (University of Cambridge)

July 24, 2020 By Caroline Reed

The Energy & Environment Special Interest Group from Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, held a session of the Climate Action Simulation game, at the end of May. Facilitated by Andrei Covatariu (Romania), the game gathered around 30 MBA students from all over the world, with different educational backgrounds and from different professional sectors.

The session was initially planned for a full workshop, in Cambridge, UK, but the COVID-19 situation called for an adjustment of plans. The online simulation was design for two rounds of negotiations and decisions, the game setup being adjusted accordingly. It included five “classic” teams (Climate Justice Hawks; Land, Agriculture & Forestry; Conventional Energy; Clean Tech; Industry & Commerce) and three different types of Governments (Developed Countries; Fast Growing Countries; Slow Growing Countries).

After a short session, within the predetermined teams, the above-mentioned groups were paired, a context aimed to ignite debates and negotiations for the upcoming first round of decisions.

While several inspired decisions were taken by the first teams, the expected positive result was offset by Land, Agriculture & Forestry, which opted for a more conservative reduction of methane and other GHG (previously increased significantly by Slow Growing Countries). At the same time, the Industry & Commerce team reduced the previously modified carbon price, from “maximum taxation” to only “high taxation”.

Moreover, the Developed Countries group’s decision to increase the rate of economic growth turned out to be a trap, as instead of decreasing the temperature, it increased it by 0.2^oC (due to less concern on energy efficiency measures and increased consumption, determined by higher wages).

The second round of the session – which also included debates and negotiations between paired teams – featured more aggressive steps towards GHG reduction (see figure 3). Consequently, some of the timid inputs added in the first round were reintroduced in a more decisive manner, in this second iteration. Additionally, investments in new technologies and energy efficiency (both in the transportation sector as well as in buildings and industry) have been increased.

These straightforward steps translated into clear climate benefits, the group being able to reach a level of +1.6^o C. Although the group was positively surprised by the end result, we concluded that additional measures would have to be taken to meet the recommended +1.5^o C threshold.

The end of the second round included an extended debate on the costs associated with the transition process and with the deployment of clean generation technologies. It also included a discussion on affordability issues, especially in slow growing countries, thus related to the difficult challenges brought by the energy transition in these regions. Moreover, it was debated on the important role of changes needed at cultural level, especially considering the need to reduce methane emissions from agriculture.

The session ended with a call for action for all the participants, both at personal and organizational levels, acknowledging the fact that avoiding the worst-case scenario is still possible.