Let's communicate environment conservation tips to airplane passengers as an in-flight featured presentation.
I dig the idea! I hope I can illuminate some of the challenges LEED faces, so that you have a head's up!
Just so we're on the same page---and I'm learning with you---the LEED system is based on builders first meeting certain requirements (“prerequisites”) and then earning points from a menu of optional building components or performance achievements (“credits”). Depending on the number of credits achieved, a qualified applicant may earn a rating and certification at one of four levels (certified, silver, gold, or platinum).
1. How high should you set your standards?
There is a theory that home builder-applicants will be more likely to adopt green measures if they perceive them to be within their reach. Set your standards too high, they won’t even bother. There is a tension between wanting to meaningfully impact the environment and getting enough users.
2. A second challenge---for LEED and for you--- is your business model.
If your revenue comes from your users, to keep the system going you are incentivized to keep your standards low. If your standards are too high or the process of application is too complicated, fewer people will be willing to pay the costs of documentation and formal review.
3. How might you keep people from gaming the system? How do you ensure you're achieving actual environmental performance, and that people are not taking shortcuts to achieve the highest rating possible? You don't want your users to just go after low-hanging fruit to rack up a good score, even if the underlying measure doesn’t result in a significant environmental impact.
Ok those are just what I've gleaned from my mini-research. Here's an article. Hope it helps!
Have you heard of the Acterra Award for Business Environmental Awards? I am impressed with the rigor of their criteria and strength of their judges panel. Perhaps they could even back Giving Back!
Their Business Environmental Award seems to hold sway in the Silicon Valley on the basis of community recognition, positive publicity, and the opportunity for the award recipients to publish their best practices.
Let me know if you're interested and I can connect you to a 2014 Acterra award recipient.
Just to cheer you on: I've often heard of social entrepreneurs communicating public health or other important messages through theatre with great success. I am confident you can apply drama to address climate change with equal success.
For example, "Secrets,” a production that uses the power of live theatre to communicate the facts and dispel the myths about HIV/AIDS and sexual transmitted infections. The characters in the performance model effective negotiation skills and encourage young people to discuss difficult topics with their partners, friends, and adults in their lives. What's incredible is that since 1985, over 1.5 million people have seen “Secrets” throughout Northern California. Perhaps researching how they reached such scale would be beneficial to you.
I have even come across a social entrepreneur, Brij Kothari, who uses popular Bollywood films to spread literacy throughout India - by using subtitles to accompany the films' songs. So this idea would resonate internationally.
In high school, I was part of a D.A.R.E. anti-drug abuse drama team that toured around to local middle schools. One trick we learned is to pull members from the audience to improv with us. Being onstage made a strong impression on the kids.
In addition to schools, what other venues could you perform?
I hope you take your music and preform it in elderly residence homes. You could then encourage residents to tell their children and grandchildren.