The most CO2-friendly route is truly a PR first idea – an idea, experiment, and research that touches everyone driving a car and that got published in automotive and other media around the world. The work was solely relying on earned media.

We achieved more than 90 media hits, especially in Neste’s core markets Scandinavia and Baltics, which is a significant amount of media hits for the smaller markets – also PR was a great tool to inspire change within global players like Google.

Neste, an energy company, is on a transformation from oil refinery to a leader in renewable solutions. While working on Neste’s app, we found an insight: navigation systems provide the shortest or fastest route as default option – but not the most co2-friendly one, thus the wrong option for the environment.

Objectives: 1. To raise this significant insight globally and use it to drive a behavior change on an individual level by having drivers rethinking their routing choices and on a corporate level by bringing awareness to this issue to the automotive and satnav industry.

2.To create the right partner ecosystem for this project. We needed partners which actively work in the field navigation so that the outcome can be implemented in practice through better algorithms.

3.To help Neste with its positioning as a modern company reflecting its strategic transition from oil refinery to a global leader in renewable solutions.

The idea: "The most CO2-friendly Route". The idea was driven by data and machine learning, yet was touching a topic relevant to most people - driving. A new finding, proven via an experiment, was at the core of the “most co2 friendly route project. With the help of data, we discovered that most navigation systems default routes are not the most co2 friendly ones. Meaning that navigation systems provide us the wrong option for the environment. Our idea was to emphasize that the default route choice which is usually the fastest is often a bad choice for the environment. We targeting people through global and local media – the first step to behavioral change is to bring attention to the subject and make people aware of it.

Driving is a high-interest topic and there are lots of publications looking for content. Our insight (the suggested route by navigational software is not the most CO2 friendly one) and our idea (the most CO2 friendly route) is interesting for a broad audience as driving is a topic close to many people also outside the automotive industry. Our key message “Often, the suggested route by navigation software is not the most CO2 friendly one.“ was often used in media headlines. The target audiences are companies and individuals alike – companies that are interesting from a collaboration point of view for Neste, and individuals who amplify the idea and subject. The insight helped to collaborate and form a strategic partnership with HERE Technologies, PTV Group, and VTT which provided credibility and interesting angles for local and global media.

Our main focus was on sharing the research and experiments, flavored with practical advice on fuel savings during commutes and short trips in urban areas, a topic highly interesting for media and automotive media. In order to achieve the best coverage in core markets, we had localized press releases, which proved to help coverage in the smaller market areas with fewer resources. For bigger local markets like Finland, we had additional pitching to journalists to ensure wide coverage. We also targeted lead media to ensure a further organic spreading of the project. The research and experiment took many months to conduct and analyze, the PR publishing and pitching phase was approx. 3 weeks.

We achieved more than 90 media hits, especially in Neste’s core markets Scandinavia and the Baltics, which is a significant amount of media hits for the smaller markets. The reach was 138 million, and unique visitors totaled 38 million. The sentiment of the coverage was positive (Meltwater, BusinessWire Reporting, Neste’s own measurement), and the shared research and information caused people to discuss, share and rethink their driving routes in social media.

Less than a year later, Google Maps followed too and announced that it will change its routing logic towards CO2-friendly. While it is difficult to attribute sales for one project for a global company, sales in key markets increased by approximately 10%. Also, as a less tangible result, Neste keeps on working with the strategic partners from this project to further develop and implement better navigation and other digital projects.