Balloons send the business climate strategy soaring

Design and art got officials cooperating on a new inter-ministerial business climate strategy.

Business has a crucial role to play in the work towards the creation of a green economy. Therefore the effort to produce a strategy for how business can contribute to Denmark’s climate goals while also generating growth was a primary task for the Ministry of Economic and Business Affairs from 2007 to 2009. Led by a committee of ministers and business representatives, officials from six ministries worked on policy initiatives that are innovative and visionary, and that cut across the individual ministries’ areas of responsibility.

MindLab has applied a variety of approaches in which art, design and visualization have been a central feature. One example is that of a workshop involving 80 white helium-filled balloons that were decorated with words or drawings expressing what climate change means for citizens, businesses and the society to which they belong. Another is when the world-famous artist Olafur Eliasson challenged a large group of officials to aim high in their ambitions and reminded them that aesthetics and sensual experience are also important ingredients in a successful climate summit. Or there was the COP15 summit, when the presentation of the final strategy was aided by a flipbook which the participants themselves could use to browse through a planet – a planet that first turned red from CO2 emissions and pollution, but later turned blue again when the old solutions were replaced by new environmentally friendly and energy-efficient technology. It was a hopeful indicator that the world might be able to cope with the climate-change threat provided all elements in society get involved.

MindLab involved:

• Businesses and institutions that are leaders in sustainable climate solutions.
• Artists and designers.
• The strategy’s inter-ministerial working group, consisting of about 20 officials.

Principal results

• A common vision for the business environment strategy involving several ministries.
• A large number of policy proposals for the forthcoming business climate strategy, many of which have been included in the strategy.
• New ideas on how the business climate strategy should be presented during the COP15 summit in Copenhagen.

What MindLab did

MindLab employed a wide variety of art- and design-based approaches. These included workshops conducted for the inter-ministerial working group. The workshops were kicked off by presenters whose perspectives lay outside the participating officials’ normal range of experience, such as field experts in climate footprint measurement, not to mention the world-famous artist Olafur Eliasson. Meanwhile, young design students from around the world got involved during Design Week 2009, when MindLab invited them to come up with alternative suggestions for visualizing the business climate strategy. Finally, designers were brought in to visualize the strategy that would be presented during the COP15 summit in Copenhagen.

”Taking people out of their familiar surroundings often works well, and this is also what happened here.”

Carina Ohm, project manager for the Ministry of Economic and Business Affairs.