The Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water needed Australians to actually understand what a Home Energy Rating is and why it matters, not just comply with it. Research showed most people had no real grasp of what a rating covered or how it was calculated, and words like “certificate” were putting people off before they’d even looked into it.

Rather than one explainer video, Laundry Lane built a suite of five animated films: a Hero introduction plus four films going deeper on the certificate itself, upgrades, the science behind NatHERS, and buying or leasing a rated home. All five follow the same small cast of neighbours, Jess bringing her energy bill down, Luca thinking about shading before a renovation, Jo weighing up an upgrade before renting their place out, Minh wanting the science explained properly, and Maya house hunting and comparing ratings.

Using the same characters across all five meant each film could go deeper into its own angle without re-explaining the scheme from scratch every time, and let the release be sequenced based on what testing showed people actually needed to know first.

That testing shaped the whole approach. It’s why the language leads with plain terms instead of “certificate,” why cost gets a real number attached to it rather than a vague promise, and why renters and apartment dwellers get addressed directly rather than assumed to read themselves into it. It also surfaced that real estate agents were open to the scheme but weren’t hearing about it from clients, making them worth speaking to on their own.

The films sit on homeenergyrating.gov.au, with social cutdowns feeding audiences back to the full series.