Building Momentum Around a First-of-Its-Kind Carbon Capture Technology

Overview

This campaign received an honorable mention and was a finalist for Environmental/Sustainability Campaign of the Year at the 2023 PRNEWs Platinum Awards.

The building sector is the fourth-highest carbon-emitting industry in the U.S. Additionally, 80% of the buildings that will be standing in 2050 are already built today. Therefore, reducing the carbon footprint of buildings is imperative to meet the international goal outlined in the Paris Agreement of keeping global temperatures below 1.5 degrees and avoiding the worst effects of climate change.

CarbonQuest was founded in 2019 to bring to market a first-of-its-kind carbon capture technology to reduce emissions from the built environment.

Situation

The global shift toward carbon reduction over the past decade indicated that there could be significant demand for CarbonQuest’s product. This demand was bolstered by the enactment of a range of local legislative measures, which sought to reduce building carbon emissions in gateway cities like New York and Boston. CarbonQuest installed its first commercial system in Manhattan 18 months ago in a 30-story residential tower in the bustling Lincoln Center area.

With a proven product, CarbonQuest engaged Antenna with the mandate to pursue a PR and marketing campaign that put CarbonQuest’s technology on the map by elevating brand awareness, enhancing the public profiles of senior executives, driving website traffic and attracting new business leads.

Approach

At the commencement of the campaign, Antenna decided that to garner significant attention among media, prospective users, and legislative stakeholders, it was essential to clearly communicate that CarbonQuest’s “building carbon capture” solution was a revolutionary and different technology than other existing carbon capture technologies (some of which had negative reputations). In addition, with electrification at the forefront of the conversation around building decarbonization, the team focused on educating the market on the value of building carbon capture — which serves as an immediate emission reducer — as part of a long-term pathway to electrification. 

After establishing carbon capture’s differentiation and identifying an audience for ‘building carbon capture’, the PR team embarked on a multi-faceted campaign to introduce the technology to the market. The PR campaign included a range of different components, including designing, writing and developing a new website; devising a robust media relations program; and pursuing thought leadership for CarbonQuest and its executives. 

The media relations campaign focused heavily on highlighting CarbonQuest’s existing installments — both the first large-scale building carbon capture system in NYC and the additional buildings that would be announced. The team’s approach to thought leadership encompassed media and awards/events components. In the former, the approach was to pursue opportunities to help increase the profile and exposure of CarbonQuest and the company’s key executives around relevant and ongoing media conversations, e.g. building decarbonization, carbon capture, etc. Recent sustainability regulatory wins made these conversations more prevalent in the media, and Antenna was set on keeping CarbonQuest’s tech at the forefront of journalists’ minds when it came to writing about progress in the space.

The awards/events program was strategically designed to be wide-ranging to highlight CarbonQuest’s product, activity and accomplishments across a wide range of audiences, ranging from real estate owners and developers to sustainability influencers and civic leaders.

Results

The PR campaign was incredibly successful and achieved its objective of securing top-tier media coverage. Notable placements included an exclusive with Bloomberg; a New York Times article that ran in print and online; a CBS Earth Day special feature on the New York affiliate; and an Associated Press video and article. The team also secured hits in trade publications spanning the real estate, cleantech, and science sectors, including Canary Media, The Real Deal, Ars Technica, among others.

The team also enhanced CarbonQuest’s executive profiles. Their executives were featured across media outlets, which included interviews on CBS and with the Associated Press. Additionally, our awards strategy garnered two awards for CarbonQuest executives: The City & State of New York’s “2023 Energy and Environment Power 100” and inclusion in Globe St.’s 2023 “Women of Influence”.

Not surprisingly, the strong media coverage also translated to surges of new visitors to CarbonQuest’s site and spikes in inbound requests from interested prospects.