Engage workshops can include roleplay exercises, in which participants are asked to adopt a specific persona and explore a hypothetical CDR decision-making scenario. The persona approach helps to reveal the distinct concerns of different players – including CDR suppliers, corporates, and civil society groups – as well as highlights the different choices and pathways available to each. 

Participants are assigned a persona before the session and are asked to bear in mind the key drivers and objectives of this persona as they move through the exercise. These drivers inform the participants’ thinking and responses to one another as they work through a key question. For example, the Chemicals workshop asked participants to explore the implications for fictional company Excellent Chemicals, of adopting an insetting, compared with an offsetting, approach to CDR.

While these corporate personas will relate to the participant’s specific experience, addressing these questions in the form of roleplay can free participants from organisational constraints. This allows for a freer discussion and reveals insights relevant to a wider audience associated with the personas, not the engaged participants alone.