Client: Made For Drink

Role: Creative Technologist

About The Project

The Exmoor Carbon Project manages beautiful tracks of ancient and new woodland on Exmoor National park for the sole purpose of sequesting carbon, increasing local biodiversity, protecting ancient trees and areas of ancient woodland and helping to establish and maintain rural employment on Exmoor. It’s primary aim in the short term is to ensure Made For Drink (MFD), a UK based Premium Snacks business achieves Carbon Neutral status. In 2023 MFD partnered with Royal Holloway University (RHUL) to look at way it could communicate messaging around this project to its customers. The result of this collaboration was a prototype of the Walking in Exmoor digital product. Using LiDAR scans, binaural recordings and other capture techniques, the story of the Exmoor Carbon project was relayed directly to customers, by founder Dan Featherstone, through an online WebGL experience that was also available in VR.

About My Process

RHUL approached me after securing research funding to help SMEs communicate their Net Zero goals but lacking a clear strategy for a digital product. I conducted a series of workshops with academics and the SME to define their story and select the technology to bring it to life. Once we finalised the design document, I led the asset capture, processing, and development of an experience accessible on computer, mobile, and VR headsets. The prototype was then available online for six months, gathering user feedback and providing insights into its impact on customer behaviour.