Case Study · SIERA ESG Platform · 3+ years
Net Zero
Carbon
- Integral to securing 7-figure, multi-year enterprise client commitments
- Secured SIERA's largest North American client
- Became SIERA's most marketable product
SIERA's clients manage large portfolios of real estate assets — office buildings, retail centres, hotels, storage facilities, residential blocks. Each asset has its own carbon footprint. Net Zero Carbon is the tool that lets fund managers see, model, and act on the carbon performance of every asset across their entire portfolio — from the fund level down to the individual building.
A fund portfolio — multiple asset types, each with its own carbon intensity, data quality, and reduction pathway
A 6-minute narrated walkthrough covering the strategic decisions behind the design, why Action Pathways became the feature that secured enterprise clients, and how the module evolved from a data visualiser into a commercial growth driver.
6 minute narrated walkthrough · Click play · Best viewed fullscreen
Fund managers and sustainability consultants were working from Excel-based reports that were fragmented and inconsistent. The challenge was to translate this into a platform that made carbon performance legible, actionable, and trustworthy for investment decision-making.
I conducted stakeholder workshops as part of my primary research phase to learn from sustainability consultants who explained real-life cases for Net Zero, as well as the offline reports generated for clients. I studied the fundamental building blocks of a Net Zero chart before designing a single element.
Card sorting with real users revealed the gap between how engineers structured the data and how users mentally organise carbon performance. I rebuilt the entire IA around user mental models.
Scaled from 4 to 72 participants within my first month — a continuous mixed-methods discovery loop that shaped the roadmap, not just validated decisions already made.
A critical early insight: the client who signs the contract is not always the end user. I mapped this distinction explicitly — it changed how we prioritised information hierarchy across the module.
Constructed a flow chart mapping how users navigate from Fund Dashboard through to Asset-level NZC pathways, capturing both journey branches and how they differ across user types.
Hover the numbered dots to read the design rationale behind each decision. Numbers match the pink labels on the original design screenshots. Use arrows to move between the three views.
Before developing Net Zero 1.0, I conducted additional usability sessions to validate proposed changes. My goal was to ensure the redesign worked for users with varying levels of expertise in both Net Zero concepts and the SIERA platform.
Self-rated expertise scale
I interviewed participants from complete novices to seasoned experts, asking them to self-rate their experience on a 5-point scale. This allowed me to dissect differences in perception, workflow, and cognitive expectations between user types — part of my focus on making SIERA a truly scalable SaaS solution that works for all abilities.
As new features were introduced into Net Zero, I repeated these evaluations to continually stress-test the product. By working in an agile, feedback-driven loop, the module evolved rapidly while maintaining product market alignment and delivering measurable user value.
Through user research into Sustainable Action Plans, I understood how planned interventions directly impact an asset's carbon intensity year-on-year. I integrated Action-Based Pathways that show both the BAU trajectory and the specific steps needed to meet Net Zero goals — letting users see the effect of each action in real time. Hover the annotation dots to read the design rationale.
During client renewal conversations, there was significant pressure to simply import legacy Excel-based workflows into SIERA — giving clients exactly what they asked for, replicating what they already knew.
I pushed back on this. Not because client feedback wasn't valuable — it was — but because blindly implementing a wishlist would have locked the product into the past rather than positioning it for the future.
I analysed what clients wanted, where the ESG SaaS market was heading, what differentiated SIERA from competitors, and what would make NZC the best carbon pathway tool in the market — not just the most familiar one. That required saying no to some requests and yes to others for reasons beyond the immediate client relationship.
Clients need to trust that the product they are renewing has a vision — that it will be better in two years than it is today. Showing strategic direction, not just responsiveness, was what retained high-value clients and attracted new enterprise accounts who wanted a platform that was built to lead the market, not follow it.
I defined critical user events, set success thresholds, and embedded Pendo tracking before each feature shipped — so we could measure whether design decisions actually landed.
NZC became SIERA's most commercially successful product. Every outcome traces directly to a design decision made through this research-led process.
A fundamental step in building strong foundations for the Net Zero module was defining how users could drill down from a portfolio fund view to the individual asset level. This interaction needed to feel intuitive, seamless, and adaptable for diverse user types.
I designed a high-fidelity prototype showing the complete drill-down journey — users could move between levels of data with minimal clicks, while maintaining context on carbon pathways, key performance metrics, and action-based interventions.
For every iterative cycle, I conducted usability tests with 10 participants — including inhouse internal consultants. From the feedback, I created thematic clusters highlighting recurring needs and pain points, translating them into actionable design improvements for continuous development of Net Zero.
Three views from the live Net Zero Carbon module — the result of 3+ years of continuous research-led iteration.
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