Developing Decarbonization Opportunities for Cross-industry Transformation
Project Description
A Fortune 500 integrated oil and gas company engaged Doblin (Deloitte Digital) to design and facilitate a full-day in-person workshop that convened them and five cross-industry partners to identify shared interests and co-create pathways for transformation that enable collective action toward shared systemic decarbonization goals.
Project Role
Lead Researcher + Designer
Client Industry
Oil & Gas
Project Type
Co-creation Workshop Design
Project Duration
7 weeks
Research Methods
In-depth interviews, Design workshops
My Role
I led the design of the workshop activities and the materials to support the workshop. A senior manager and a subject matter expert specializing in climate change joined me on the project.
My Work
At the project's onset, the client provided four potential topic areas to explore through the workshop. We surveyed workshop participants to determine which topic resonated most. Once “low carbon fuels” was selected as the topic of the workshop, we conducted interviews with each partner organization to understand the following:
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Research Objectives
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The organization’s sustainability goals and its current initiatives and priorities
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How low carbon fuels were relevant to the decarbonization of its value chain
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Gaps, barriers, and uncertainties to the adoption of low-carbon fuels as a viable fuel source
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External conditions impacting its low-carbon fuel strategy
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The organization's view on how cross-industry partnerships could accelerate progress toward decarbonization goals
Our goal for conducting interviews was to find points of convergence across five very different businesses, all in different industries, that would allow us to ensure that each participating organization would find value in partnering to address shared challenges across the low-carbon fuels value chain. In addition to participant interviews and secondary research, we met with several internal low-carbon fuels experts to understand the structure and key challenges of the value chain. We then synthesized the data to develop insights that informed both the workshop structure and content.
Our research findings allowed us to 1) understand and select low carbon fuels opportunity spaces to explore through the workshop, 2) identify key challenges across each of the value chain segments, 3) determine workshop participants key areas of interest, and 4) incorporate Deloitte’s outlook on the future of the low carbon fuels space. As a result, we developed the following set of engaging workshop activities for two low carbon fuels sub-topics.
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High-level Workshop Activities
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Sector POV Share Out: Participants shared their organization's perspectives on low-carbon fuels, creating a baseline of knowledge for everyone in the room.
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Opportunity Area Identification and Development: Participants began by identifying a shared key challenge(s) and worked through activities that allowed them to ideate and develop their ideas on opportunities to partner together and address the identified challenge(s).
We split the approximately 15-20 participants into three breakout groups. Each group collectively worked to flesh out two collaboration opportunities across two sub-topics over the course of the day. The workshop culminated in the sharing, selection, and further development of the top opportunities.
The Result
The one day workshop led to the development of approximately five opportunities for participating organizations to partner in addressing challenges critical to the growth and transformation of the low carbon fuels value chain. After opportunities were prioritized, we worked with the client to create a plan that detailed next steps for taking action toward achieving the opportunities with its partners.
Following the workshop, my team and I designed a post-workshop survey to gauge participants' reactions to the workshop and to understand each organization’s interest in moving forward with the identified opportunities. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive. All enjoyed the level of collaboration enabled by the workshop and its actionable outcomes. As a result, there was interest shared by all in moving forward with the opportunities identified through the workshop.
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The final deliverable consisted of a workshop summary report which captured:
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Insights related to the key challenges shared by each participating organization during the POV share out
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A detailed articulation of each opportunity developed during the workshop
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A structured plan to move the key opportunities into development
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My Reflection
The addition of a SME to our working team and the constant touch points with the client both played valuable roles in the workshop's success. I worked closely with our SME throughout the entirety of the project, and it made all of the difference in the framing and construction of the workshop. Along the journey, we socialized multiple prototypes (low fidelity to high fidelity) of the workshop structure and design, the workshop content, and many other aspects of the workshop. This helped to ensure buy-in from our client sponsor and others in the organization with no surprises going into the workshop.