Coral Compass: Fighting Climate Change in Palau was produced by the Virtual Human Interaction Lab (VHIL) at Stanford University — the research group led by Professor Jeremy Bailenson, whose work on VR's capacity for empathy generation and behaviour change is among the most cited in the field. The experience was selected as an Official Selection of the Tribeca Film Festival in 2018, where Observer.com described it as "the best (and shortest) of the virtual reality experiences on offer."

The format is a seven-minute seated 360° film, not an interactive application: you are a passenger through the experience rather than an actor within it. The film takes you to Palau, a small island nation in Micronesia whose economy depends heavily on the coral reef tourism its extraordinary marine biodiversity supports. You witness the reefs both in their living, biodiverse state and in the context of the bleaching pressures climate change has placed on them — and then you see the policy response: the Palau passport pledge, which became legally binding in December 2017, requiring all visitors to sign a commitment to environmental responsibility upon entry.