Pacifico Energy engaged The Colab to support them across multi-year U.S. and international communications - culminating in one of their most ambitious initiatives: Gigawatt Ranch, a 5GW off-grid power campus built to support hyperscale AI data centers in West Texas.
This wasn’t a traditional launch. It was a project guaranteed to draw attention from environmental NGOs, policymakers, energy regulators, local landowners, labor groups, utilities, and national media. Every stakeholder had competing interests (and some had the ability to halt or significantly delay the project). The company needed airtight messaging, risk assessments, and a plan capable of withstanding intense scrutiny across political, environmental, and energy circles.
Pacifico turned to The Colab to develop the full narrative, anticipate every angle of pushback, prepare spokespeople to handle adversarial questions, and ensure the company could communicate confidently in a highly charged environment.
We built Gigawatt Ranch’s communications from the ground up - starting with a complete narrative system, stakeholder analysis, and message alignment. Our team crafted core positioning, media-ready language, tiered elevator descriptions, proof points, and targeted messages for every audience from hyperscalers to environmental NGOs.
But the high-stakes nature of the project demanded deeper preparation. We performed a comprehensive stakeholder risk review, mapping interests, influence, likely positions, and potential objections across all groups — including regulators (TCEQ, Texas Comptroller, DOE), local communities, landowners, labor unions, environmental NGOs, utilities, and data center operators.
From there, we built a full crisis-readiness and scenario planning package, including media FAQs, adversarial question sets, environmental pushback responses, regulatory compliance messaging, and detailed guidance on the most politically sensitive topics: emissions, water use, land impact, natural gas sourcing, sustainability claims, and grid independence.
At the same time, we positioned Gigawatt Ranch within the broader macro trend: AI’s massive energy demand and the national-security imperative of U.S.-based data center infrastructure. Our messaging aligned Pacifico with innovation, economic development, and grid-friendly design - avoiding narratives that could trigger unnecessary opposition.
In the early phases, our focus wasn’t press volume - it was foundation building. Over the first 90 days, we worked hand-in-hand with Pacifico’s leadership to stress-test the narrative against every foreseeable angle of inquiry. We created a library of media talking points, long-form answers, red-flag questions, and rapid-response guidance tailored to environmental critics, skeptical reporters, local officials, and policymakers.
We also built layered messaging frameworks for Pacifico’s CEO, development leads, and technical spokespeople so every voice told the same story - with precision, transparency, and strategic restraint. The result was a communications system robust enough to carry them through any interview, presentation, community meeting, or emerging issue.
By launch readiness, Pacifico had a fully aligned narrative that highlighted the project’s scale, reliability, regulatory strength, and sustainability commitments while anticipating concerns around emissions, land use, water access, and environmental justice.
Gigawatt Ranch was positioned as a model for responsible AI-era energy development - emphasizing:
Pacifico’s leadership entered their announcement window fully prepared - able to communicate with confidence, manage tough questions, and proactively frame the narrative rather than react to it.
Carbon Direct needed a senior team who could immediately embed, sharpen their POV, and turn technical breakthroughs into headlines.
stories per quarter across climate, tech, energy, and business press
growth in published coverage since onboarding
of quarterly goal achieved
