It’s a challenge to convince people to comply with a new ordinance – especially when the message relies on understanding technical data. This is what the City of Chicago faced as they joined forces with the Institute for Market Transformation to establish the Building Energy Benchmarking Project. Setting a goal to increase the energy efficiency of buildings by 20% in five years – saving hundreds of millions of dollars and improving the quality of life for residents – they needed to communicate the goals and report on progress annually. In 2014, the initial design and messages were focused on creating greater awareness of the plan among building owners, property managers and the general public. In 2015, the second report and infographic were able to highlight the positive initial results. More importantly, the complex data was conveyed in a design that allowed the target audiences to understand the good news, connect with the highlighted cases – and inspire additional forward movement.