The Planet versus Plastics project at Grant Thornton. Image: Imvizar
Grant Thornton and Imvizar teamed up to use the power of augmented reality to communicate the environmental damage of plastic waste.
A major challenge the scientific community faces is being able to communicate what this innovative work means for the wider society. Whether it’s breaking down the complexities of quantum physics or explaining in simple terms why space research is vital, telling the right story is a key part of the job.
This becomes even more critical when we talk about arguably the world’s biggest challenge: the climate crisis. The difficulties in communicating about climate don’t just come from the complexity of the science, but also the misinformation and disinformation that comes with it.
However, a Dublin-based start-up wants to use the power of augmented reality (AR) to tackle the communication challenge from a different angle.
Founded by Michael Guerin and Adele Keane in 2021, Imvizar prides itself on “turning spaces into living narratives” through AR technology.
The company has more than 100 AR experiences across eight countries and, last year, it raised €1.5m in funding for its ‘no-code’ AR creation tool, which allows users to create their own augmented realities (AR) without any code or design experience.
In partnership with Grant Thornton, Imvizar sought to create an immersive project that would help engage audiences in a relatable way on the issue of plastics and waste.
“Visitors begin by interacting with a digital seagull and a discarded coffee cup, highlighting the environmental damage caused by plastic waste. The experience unfolds to show how even small changes, such as reducing coffee cup use by one per week, can significantly impact the environment,” said Guerin. “The experience concludes with the Grant Thornton lobby flooded with over 100,000 coffee cups, visualising the amount they save from landfill each year.”
Áine Keogh, head of sustainability at Grant Thornton Ireland, said the company teamed up with Imvizar on this project for a “unique approach to storytelling” in the realm of sustainability.
“We were aware that augmented reality could create a more personal and active experience, to inform and inspire people,” she said. “For us, it was a natural marriage to take technology that we knew was available and apply it to our efforts to inspire our people and clients towards climate action.”
From concept to reality
Grant Thornton reached out to the start-up in early 2024 to collaborate on the project and focused on the impact of plastic waste. “We knew that we wanted to address a real problem, something that everybody can relate to and tangibly see. We focused on the impact of coffee cups because they’re such a visible contributor to waste in Irish society and workplaces,” said Keogh.
“We also built an experience that would make that connection between personal choices and global impact and the potential of collective action within an organisation or team to broadly make changes that matter.”
Once Grant Thornton’s team had developed the script and narrative, Imvizar began developing a concept, designing 3D visuals, animations and soundscapes, designing interactive elements to encourage user participation, and integrating digital content with real-world spaces before testing and optimising the final product, ‘Planet versus Plastics’.
The immersive experience was placed in the high-traffic lobby of Grant Thornton’s Dublin headquarters during Earth Week 2024.
“For this experience, we had a ‘portal’ open in the ceiling where the coffee cups came flooding out from, we had a seagull landing on the bin and lifting a coffee cup and the cups themselves were perceived to bounce down the real stairs as if this was really happening in front of you,” said Guerin.
“This form of storytelling is entirely unique as not only does it include audio and visuals, like video, but it also includes user movement and interactivity. These two things drive emotional connection to the content up considerably.”
A new tool for science communication
While AR storytelling is not yet widely used, Guerin said it can deliver real impact when executed correctly, particularly when it makes abstract issues relatable through interactivity and visuals that inspire action.
“For any story, but in particular for sustainability storytelling, the concepts can often be nebulous or on such a large scale it is hard to understand how one person can make an impact,” he said.
“Through this interactive experience we were able to visually demonstrate how using just one coffee cup less per week could have a major impact on waste and carbon emissions.”
Having spent more than 15 years in sustainability leadership, Keogh said effective storytelling can “make or break” how society addresses climate action.
“We’re hoping to create a ripple effect, that when others see the success that we had with the ‘Planet versus Plastics’ augmented reality experience, that they take ideas from our success and equally inspire more participants and more people to act. Because the same old approaches are not going to work in the face of the major challenges we have as a globe and economy.”
And although the ‘Planet versus Plastics’ project takes a much broader concept to engage a non-scientific audience in everyday sustainability practices rather than more in-depth climate science, the potential to go more niche is there.
In the future, AR technology could be used by scientists to better communicate their research and could allow non-scientific audiences to experience and better understand scientific data and its relevance to society.
And in some cases, use has already begun. In November 2023, the Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Freiburg announced its ‘XR Future Forest Lab’ project, to develop cutting-edge virtual, augmented and mixed reality applications for forest science. This will give researchers and students opportunities to visualise forestry and environmental science data and simulate changes in forests.
And in the US, Tyler Ard, an assistant professor at University of Southern California created Schol-AR, a smartphone app that allows science communicators to create dynamic elements for scientific articles, documents or books, which can then be viewed by readers through the Schol-AR app.
Don’t miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic’s digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.
