Designing CEFC's Net Zero Agriculture Initiative

About this project

The Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) deploys government-backed capital into clean energy and sustainable infrastructure projects across Australia.

Working as an embedded product designer, I supported two high-profile initiatives: the Net Zero Agriculture Pathfinder and the 2023-24 Annual Report redesign. Both required navigating a heavily regulated content environment while making complex financial and policy information genuinely accessible, to farmers, investors, policymakers, and press, depending on the page.

What we were up against

CEFC operates in an environment where accuracy and regulatory alignment are non-negotiable. Pages needed to communicate complex information, including policy objectives, investment criteria, and project outcomes, clearly, without oversimplifying or misrepresenting.

The primary challenge was information architecture: how to structure content so that different audiences could find what they needed without the page becoming unwieldy. The secondary challenge was stakeholder alignment. Senior leadership had strong, informed views, and every design decision required justification across multiple levels of the organisation and multiple rounds of review.

How I worked

I conducted user research with 10+ participants to identify where the existing information structures were failing: where users got lost, what they expected to find, and the vocabulary they used to think about clean energy finance. That research directly shaped the IA decisions: where to split content, what to surface at the top level, and how to sequence information for different reader journeys.

Created custom SVG infographics and visual assets that made complex agricultural data actionable for non-technical stakeholders, replacing dense tables with scannable, decision-oriented visuals.

I developed and iterated through prototyping: content maps, low-fidelity wireframes, and progressively refined layouts. The work went through 4 stakeholder review cycles, presenting to senior leadership and subject matter experts, incorporating technical and regulatory feedback, and iterating without compromising usability.

Documentation was as important as the design itself: annotations explained rationale and accessibility requirements to the implementation teams building from the specs.

Results & impact

The Pathfinder replaced a PDF-only format, making emissions reduction guidance navigable and accessible to farmers and landowners for the first time.

Both projects delivered to WCAG 2.1 AA standards.

Delivered on schedule across four stakeholder review cycles without scope creep.

The IA work strengthened how CEFC communicates complex investment criteria to non-specialist audiences. In a domain where clarity directly affects how many farmers and landowners engage with clean energy finance, making that content more accessible is a meaningful outcome.