Problem: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), eager to get cars off the road and reduce air pollution, wanted more employers to offer "commuter benefits" such as transit fare subsidies and better telecommuting support. So the EPA created the "Commuter Choice Leadership Initiative." They held award luncheons and gave plaques to businesses that offered lots of commuter benefits.

Challenge: Most employers were not interested. Neither was the press. When then-EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman launched the program in Washington, not a single reporter showed up. Sure, offering commuter benefits was the right thing to do for the environment, but employers wanted a better reason to invest in these benefits. Their biggest concern: employee recruitment and retention.

Action: AED suggested that the EPA offer employers a benefit that mattered and created the “Best Workplaces for Commuters” list. In each target city, the EPA partnered with local transportation and business groups to survey businesses who might qualify and then placed the winners on a list it would update regularly and promote to the press annually. To recruit more participants, it warned them of the impending deadline to make the list before it was published.

Results: Interest suddenly soared. Some employers rushed to qualify and meet the deadline. Stories about who made the list were splashed across the six o’clock news and the section fronts of newspapers. The number of participating employers quadrupled. The EPA offered its own opinion on the idea not long after it was tested in San Francisco — it changed the name of the entire program to Best Workplaces for Commuters^SM.