Encouraging Action on Climate Change with BI

THE CHALLENGE

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) is an independent humanitarian organisation helping people forced to flee. NRC works in crises across 40 countries, providing life-saving and long-term assistance to millions of people every year. Many of these communities are increasingly also affected by climate change and the severe weather hazards it causes.

This is why NRC recognises their responsibility to minimise harm to the environment caused by greenhouse gas emissions. They approached Climber to help them effectively use travel data from their operational teams to understand how their flights and car journeys impact their carbon footprint.

When dealing with humanitarian crises it isn’t easy to predict activity. This is why NRC were initially focusing on their operational teams, rather than their response teams.

“If we were making bicycles it would be easier to predict our carbon impact as we would know where our customers and suppliers were, but as a humanitarian organisation it is more difficult, as our biggest CO2 comes from our response, which we will always prioritise.”

Lauren Stern, Data Manager

NRC had calculated a baseline emissions footprint for 2019, based on the international Greenhouse Gas Protocol. Now it was time to move forward with regular monitoring to put the data in the hands of key decision makers. Their teams already worked with Microsoft applications, so they asked us at Climber BI to develop three visually engaging Power BI dashboards.

THE APPROACH

NRC wanted one dashboard to show their carbon footprint and the contributing sources of emissions, which would be updated annually. Two dashboards for flight and fleet data would be reported on quarterly. They had been gathering data in multiple systems and formats, including excel spreadsheets, monthly logistics reports, and flight bookings from travel agencies.

Our initial priority was to collate and standardise the data from the various systems. We started with a discovery stage to determine the location, quality, and governance of the data. We took an agile approach with short sprints, so we could stay in touch regularly with NRC.

Communication was crucial throughout the project and we developed a good working relationship with the NRC team.

“I really enjoyed working with Climber; they were responsive and listened to our needs.”

Lauren Stern, Data Manager

We ensured the three Power BI dashboards were visually engaging and easy to use. For the air travel dashboard, we included a world map to make it easier to see the highest carbon routes. Teams can compare data by timeframe and filter by region and country.

We held two training workshops with key stakeholders and provided a guide for non-technical users to ensure they could quickly begin working with the dashboards.

THE RESULT

NRC are using the dashboards to set flight targets for their operational teams and anticipate doing the same for fleet in 2025. They have also identified other data sets to begin to measure their energy use.

“Our work with Climber has helped us to mainstream our carbon reduction discussions and push the conversation forward.”

Lauren Stern, Data Manager