This project is relevant for the Creative Data category because data is at heart of the strategic idea behind the project and how we brought it to life creatively.

How can a partnership between an energy company and a small bike manufacturer inspire the entire automotive industry to remove carbon emissions from its production chains? By being radically transparent and open sourcing its technical innovation data rather than protecting it.

And how can we grab the industry’s attention for our project? By turning the emissions data from our product into a memorable image that anyone can relate to.

We’re staring a climate emergency in the face. Only systemic transformation can deliver the huge cuts in global CO2 emissions we need. Transport accounts for 25% of those emissions.

Leading European energy company Vattenfall is on a mission to remove fossil fuels from society. They already have one of Europe’s largest electric vehicle charging networks.

While electric vehicles don’t emit CO2 when used, they create emissions when manufactured, assembled and transported. These can be 70% higher than petrol models.

So when Vattenfall asked us to inspire the automotive industry to change by showcasing their expertise in decarbonising production chains, we proposed more than a campaign, we proposed a product. We recommended producing the first truly fossil free vehicle, in partnership with electric motorcycle manufacturer CAKE.

Our objective isn’t just to remove emissions from the production chain of one bike, but to inspire the entire automotive industry to do the same.

This is Vehicle of Change – one bike built to change how all vehicles are made.

To get the automotive industry to go truly fossil free, we need to create a ‘ripple effect’ of impact which reaches far beyond this one bike, attracting the attention of big brands and inspiring them to action.

Vattenfall and CAKE set a deadline of 2025 to get their fossil free bike to market. But that’s a long way off, so we took a strategic decision to communicate about the journey not just the destination.

We decided to put the technical data from our project at the heart of our solution. Throughout our journey to produce the bike, we’re communicating with radical transparency, turning competitive thinking and company secrets on their head for the climate, and instead open sourcing all the project data. For anyone to use, for free.

The project started with a data driven challenge – according to the UN, transport accounts for a quarter of global CO2 emissions. Vattenfall is committed to partnering with the transport sector to help reduce those emissions.

The automotive industry is making progress, with global electric vehicle (EV) sales growing from 4% in 2020 to 14% in 2022. But EVs also have a hidden carbon cost – emissions from their production can be 70% higher than petrol models. If we want to stay on the 1.5°C climate pathway, Polestar estimates the EV industry needs to reduce manufacturing emissions by over 80% by 2032.

This challenge is too big to take the usual approach of closely guarding technical innovation data. So our strategy was to open source all the data from the project. For a relatively small manufacturer like CAKE, it’s the only way to create the impact we need.

At the start of the project, the existing bike was dismantled into over 100 components made up of 2,000 smaller parts. Their complex supply chains were mapped, and the carbon footprint of each part measured. Today, the whole bike emits 1,186kg CO2e.

But how do you make 1,186kg CO2e visible and relatable? Our breakthrough moment came when we discovered that one tonne of CO2 fills the same space as a small house. That means the emissions of this small bike would fill a cube measuring 637m3 – hundreds of times bigger than the bike itself.

In the launch campaign, we showed the bike suspended in this huge cube measuring 637 m3, as it fills with smoke to dramatise the bike’s total emissions and then empties to dramatise our objective. This cube is the foundation for all our communications. We’re showing it shrinking as we work towards our goal of zero emissions.

In post-tests, the launch campaign outperformed previous benchmarks for Vattenfall’s brand image in its two brand differentiator metrics: “Leads the development towards a sustainable future” (+19%) and “Takes a broader responsibility” (+20%).

But the real impact is the change the project is already inspiring across the industry. We have seven new partners on board, from sustainable material start-ups to world leaders in suspension. The potential reach of these collaborations is huge.

Öhlins, the leading suspension manufacturer who provide over 3 million components annually to Ferrari, BMW and Volkswagen, said “We supply some of the world’s top car brands. This project is the perfect opportunity for us to future-proof our suspension.”

PaperShell, who manufacture carbon-free materials, said “This has made the automotive industry aware of our plastic replacement, resulting in no less than 20 new enquiries.” This includes discussions with Polestar about removing plastics from the 51,000 EVs they sell annually.