Empathy to Electrification: Decarb Quest

We know how City Council meetings can go. (We’ve seen Parks and Recreation.) Community members gather at the podium for public comment, sharing issues with the City that may or may not be relevant to the issue at hand. And while community members may not know the ins and outs of government, they know their own needs. Meanwhile, elected officials and City staff, as experts in their field and a broader view of City government, have their own priorities they want to move forward. They may see their technical expertise as holding more weight than the needs of their community.  

Too often, in local government, staff and electeds are seen as at odds with community members. In the context of climate change, many City staff are now endeavoring to design decarbonization programs at a rapid pace to align with ambitious climate goals. But to achieve GHG reductions, these programs need to be designed for actual community uptake. This can be very difficult if community needs are not properly integrated into City programs. Our Decarb Quest game is designed to bridge this gap and do just that– create space for meaningful dialogue in designing City decarbonization programs to fit community needs.  

Decarb Quest is a tabletop game in which users select and uncover effective electrification solutions for a variety of resident characteristics, building types and triggers. Players receive a set of randomly assigned resident characteristics cards (e.g. homeowner, renter, young family, seniors), building characteristic cards (e.g. single family, multifamily, low-income, high energy use household), and trigger cards (e.g. home sale, renovation, appliance failure) to form a set of scenarios that must be addressed with electrification solutions.  

The goal of the game is to identify the most effective strategies to get residents to electrify their homes. By randomizing different resident and building characteristics, the game is designed to push staff, decision-makers, and community members to consider how programs will effectively reach a broad swath of audiences. This exercise is designed to illuminate different resident perspectives to build empathy and understanding among community members, staff, and leadership alike. In addition, new ideas for strategies are created by considering all the varied situations. 

Decarb Quest is explicitly designed to put people first. Unlike many efforts in decarbonization, the game, designed by BluePoint for this reason, starts by building empathy for different residents and understand how they live and what their specific experience is to develop more meaningful and targeted strategies. Equally, it is an exercise that local governments can use to engage community members, decision-makers, and staff with the same tool.  By building empathy to reach our decarbonization goals, we can successfully electrify together.