getclimate.solutions: a cutting-edge web platform elevating environmental advocacy.
Built utilizing the latest web standards, this platform intends on transforming the way we advocate for the planet - by harnessing the power of technology to amplify environmental efforts and drive meaningful, measurable change.This prototype aims at improving visibility, data-federation and content accessibility through packaging and promoting environmental data in an engaging, interactive and socially engaged web platform.
There is a growing interest and willingness to do more to address the triple planetary crisis.
This is illustrated by an increased global appetite for scientific information, with UNESCO noting in the 2021 Science Report that global scientific publishing rose by 21% between 2015 and 2019, with environmental sciences showing the fastest growth in publishing (45.7% ) over the same period. This is further evidenced by the rise in analytical data on key metrics such as website and app visits, downloads, and social sharing spanning the various online platforms utilized by advocacy organizations today.
The growing interest in scientific information has coincided with the rapid advancement of web-based technologies, providing advocacy organizations with a wide range of technological options for distributing their online publications. This has led to various challenges, including:
Quick Features
- Easy content consolidation with optional translations & moderation.
- Custom data collection & reporting for advocacy and research purposes.
- Flexible, quick loading web framework to support your layout targets
- Media rich platform supporting interactive tools, data visualizations and user engagement.
- Build your own online community with forums, comments, social features like likes & comments and fully social media integration.
Data & platform fragmentation
Various online publications are deployed as standalone systems, leading to platform fragmentation and data isolation due to a lack of standardization and limited integration options.
Data sustainability challenges
By maintaining multiple platforms for online resources, managing, securing, and updating data across diverse platforms requires significant resources, coordination and sometimes costly provisions to sustain the platforms.
Data accessibility and usability
Advocacy efforts often target the general public or policymakers who may lack a scientific background. Presenting complex data in a way that is easily understood while maintaining its accuracy is crucial for effective communication and influence.
Effective Data Visualization
Scientific data must be visually compelling to grab attention and convey key points quickly. However, creating effective visualizations that do not oversimplify or distort the information can be difficult, especially with complex datasets.
So how does this prototype address these challenges?
This prototype is designed to elevate visibility and accessibility in the scientific data space. By unifying flexible, open-source web tools into a backend supporting various content and advocacy needs, this platform offers the capacity to publish multiple, science based interactive web resources into one platform whilst integrating features implemented to maximize on user engagement and data collection.
By utilizing the latest web standards, content can be managed and moderated by content curators across the globe on one centralized system, thereby offering the ability to aggregate and present data in a unified format, ensuring that information is easy to find and understand - whilst also keeping content management related carbon footprints low.
How does this prototype achieve this?
By leveraging on data from your already performant resources, this platform is targeted at federating the data and reports made available by your technical leads into a centralized, multi-language, socially integrated web platform. This is combined with the platforms' web frameworks, adding life and interaction to your content thereby helping in bringing enhanced clarity to the complex environmental issues you want to communicate whilst making data more digestible for users from different backgrounds whilst delivering a lasting impression to the platform users.
The platform has a special focus on data-federation, giving it the ability to integrate diverse environmental data sources into a cohesive structure whilst enabling the assimilation of your content around the federated data to make it consumable and accessible to your users. Instead of information being scattered across multiple platforms, this prototype consolidates it in one place, providing users with a comprehensive view of your data landscape - with increased capacity to create interlinkages.
This is designed to specifically address publication / resource fragmentation, whilst also packaging content to address the following common challenges with online resources related with scientific data:
- Content generated for audiences with an advanced understanding of the topic.
- Reduced ability to combine advocacy efforts and / or social media integration with the resources made available.
Interactive features are at the heart of the platform, turning passive data presentation into an engaging experience. By using visual storytelling and dynamic elements, this platform encourages users to explore data actively, deepening their understanding of your content. This interactive layer not only makes the platform more engaging but also helps transform data into actionable insights that can inspire real-world change.
The platform also leverages social engagement to extend its reach and impact. By incorporating native features like social sharing, commenting, and collaborative tools, this platform fosters and has the capacity to host an online community around environmental advocacy with multiple user levels and interaction tools. This social dimension ensures that the platform doesn't just inform but also sparks conversations and mobilizes collective action, making it a powerful tool for driving change.
Features
The system is wrapped in a highly secure user authentication system founded on the users’ email address (which most organizations already request and capture through email newsletter subscriptions), which means that the user’s data exposure is limited to logins, in-platform activity and their first name, last name and email address.
Simon Johnson
Student
Depending on your advocacy / campaign / communication needs, the platform builds user profiles around these email addresses allowing users to comment, ask questions and receive answers from your technical leads, participate in various calls to action and actively get involved in various campaigns through submitting data.
Data submissions and integration
This platform offers a host of data collation tools to streamline your data collection for advocacy or data presentation purposes. With seamless integration capabilities, users can combine data from multiple sources for comprehensive analysis and impactful reporting and publish the data either in the form of maps or graphs.
Mapping
The platform allows for the integration of maps to pinpoint locations of interest. Powered by MapTiler, content can be aggregated by location - from capturing initiatives to articles, all with content translations and in as much detail as is required.
Mapping key features:
- Map data can be submitted from the public, your internal communications team or both.
- Map data can be translated, linked, or published as a stand-alone web page (i.e. have map points link to pages explaining more about the data).
- Data is represented on borderless maps thereby eliminating the risk of geographic biases and ensuring a more global, inclusive view.
Graphing
This platform also allows for the seamless integration of graphs, enabling users to visually represent complex data in an intuitive and engaging way. By incorporating customizable graphs, users can enhance their presentations and reports, making data insights easier to understand for the sites' users and more impactful.
Graphing key features:
- Graph data can be aggregated from submissions from the public, your internal communications team or both.
- The platform’s graph features include a variety of customizable chart types, such as bar graphs, line charts and pie charts.
Trend analysis: 1970 - 2020
Average change in Global Glacier Mass vs Average Global Sea Surface Temperature
Tech Stack
- NextJs
- Drupal 10+ (with translations & moderation)
- Cloud services + AWS storage
- +
- GraphQL + Hasura level user management
- PHP + JS
- AI guided 24/7 security
- API integration ready
- Git based deployments
- HTML e-newsletter integration (Mailchimp)