The Brief

Carbon Story, an organisation that helps people offset their carbon footprint, wanted to raise awareness about the devastating effects of climate change. Experts predict sea levels could rise by up to 6ft in the next 100 years. But people across Singapore and beyond don't relate to this issue because it seems far from their everyday reality. To change people’s perceptions, we brought the threat of rising sea levels to their doorstep on close to zero budget. The project combines Google Street View and WebGL technology to reveal what the world around you or any street you’re familiar with would look like under water. Type ANY location (available on Google Street View) and see the catastrophic effects of climate change. The project gives people a personalised view into how climate change could affect them and allows them to share their own generated underwater locations with their friends on social media. It also lets you take action by calculating and offsetting your carbon footprint. The website launched on April 30th for World Environment Day 2014. However our team is currently pushing the boundaries of the technology even further as an advanced research tool in partnership with Boston University.

This project was created to raise consumer awareness about climate change so that more people would support Carbon Story green causes and World Environment Day. By merging Google Street View and Web GL, World Under Water turned climate change into an issue that’s built around you and your own personal history and local geography. By harnessing Google API we allowed people to search streets all over the world including many famous landmarks. By combining our experiments in Web GL, we created reflection, refraction, caustics and ambient occlusion upon our submerged streets. This helped create a fast-loading, ultra realistic, programmatic water effect across an almost infinite number of searchable locations in an instant. This was the first time Web GL and Google Street View were came together in this manner. For the next stage of the project, Carbon Story has partnered with Boston University to use this technology in creating advanced research tools for the university.

In the first week alone, the site reached 213 countries and achieved 201 million media impressions. In one month, the site had 823,781 unique visitors who spent an average of 1.6 minutes on the website, generating 891,680 locations. The project was covered by CNN, Fox News, BBC, Huffington Post, Mashable and countless local news stations and websites around the world. This invaluable awareness brought the critical issue of climate change to the masses. More importantly, thousands became part of the solution – helping to offset over 250 tonnes of carbon in the first month after launch. These milestones have led to even bigger goals and long-term achievements. The first was our partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme for World Environment Day 2014. Currently, we are partnering with the United Nations once again to raise awareness about the International Year of Small Island Developing States. And to create an ongoing legacy, we pushing the boundaries of this technology even further as an advanced research tool in partnership with Boston University.