Why just train when you can entertain – and engage?

You can’t fight City Hall, and in Pasadena’s case, you can’t beat it either. The City of Pasadena’s stunning Beaux Arts building was recently updated to attain LEED Gold status. But green building is just one topic the Green Team needed to communicate to the City’s 2,300 employees and many residents.

Pasadena, known primarily for the world-famous Rose Parade and Rose Bowl, strives to be one of the greenest cities in the country. Several years ago, its mayor signed the U.N.’s Urban Environmental Accords – twenty-one actions toward a greener, cleaner city. These initiatives run the gamut from adapting green building standards to improving transportation, energy and water use and development planning.

Past efforts to inform and educate City staff and residents took the form of ponderous, text-heavy online training modules. We were engaged to present this exciting information in a fresh new way. A way that inspired and motivated the viewer to take part, and take whatever action they could to help the City reach its sustainability goals.

We interviewed the City’s core Green Team and employees from each of its seven departments. We wrote and designed our module to appeal on a human level, with upbeat photos of citizens and staffers walking the talk – or at least taking public transportation! We also layered the information with Fast Facts and Quick Tips to enable users to make a difference at work and at home.

We also created a questionnaire to ensure retention of the content and to provide a Certificate of Completion as a reward. Our easy to use, custom programming provides administrative tools to add or modify content and track users within a secure database. Future in-depth modules on specific subjects are in the works.

This first of its kind sustainability training module serves to showcase Pasadena’s unique blend of conservative values and progressive, proactive policies. You can register and view it here: ThinkGreenPasadena.com

The module—available to anyone with access to the Internet—won the County of Los Angeles Green Leadership Award for innovative initiatives that encourage sustainability. 2009 is the first year for the awards, recognizing outstanding efforts by individuals and organizations that enhance environmental sustainability and stewardship.