Case Studies
Scaling a Climate Movement Through Custom Utility and Behavioral Change
Overview
Habits of Waste (HoW) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the idea that small, individual actions, when turned into habits, can collectively solve the climate crisis. Their philosophy moves away from perfect environmentalism and toward accessible, high-impact change for everyone.
The Project: Over a multi-year partnership, we built and evolved their digital headquarters through two major brand iterations. Beyond a standard nonprofit site, we developed custom WordPress plugins and interactive tools designed to gamify environmental impact and support global grassroots campaigns.
Objectives / Problem
The primary challenge for Habits of Waste was translating a broad philosophy into specific, actionable steps that could be tracked and visualized.
- The Brand Evolution: The organization grew from a founder-led startup into a professional global entity. Their original site, while functional, eventually needed a vibe shift to match their increasing influence in the environmental sector.
- The Action Gap: The client didn’t just want a place for people to read about climate change; they needed a way for users to commit to specific campaigns and see their individual impact.
- Campaign Scalability: For their global campaigns, they needed a way to provide personalized marketing materials to supporters and corporate partners without manually designing each asset.
The Solutions
Web Development
- A Multi-Phase Brand Transformation: We acted as the long-term technical arm for the organization, ensuring their site stayed aligned with their growing professional status.
- Two-Phase Rebrand: We built the original site according to the founder’s vision and later executed a full redesign and migration to a more minimalist, high-authority brand identity that reflects their current professional stature.
- Campaign-Centric Architecture: We structured the site to highlight multiple concurrent campaigns, each with its own clear call to action, donation path, and educational resources.
Custom WordPress Plugins
- Custom Interactive Tools & Gamification: To drive behavioral change, we developed bespoke tools integrated directly into the WordPress environment using custom-built plugins.
- The Carbon Offset Challenge: we engineered a user-account system where individuals can track their weekly environmental impact. This tool uses a proprietary formula to translate small habits into cumulative carbon offset data, allowing users to visualize their personal contribution to the planet.
- Personalized Campaign Poster Generator: To support grassroots advocacy, we built a tool that allows individuals and companies to upload their logos onto personalized campaign posters. The system then generates a high-quality, printable file for display, effectively turning every supporter into a brand ambassador.
The Internal Impact
By shifting from a static site to a tool-based ecosystem, Habits of Waste has significantly increased its ability to drive and measure engagement.
- Tangible Impact Visualization: The Carbon Offset Challenge provides the organization with real data on user habits, which is invaluable for reporting impact to donors and stakeholders.
- Resource Efficiency: The automated poster generator eliminated the need for a graphic designer to fulfill individual requests, allowing the team to scale their campaigns to thousands of participants instantly.
- Operational Longevity: Having a partner that understands their history through two rebranding cycles has allowed the nonprofit to evolve its technology without losing its core data or mission-focus.
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