This week, British broadcasting giant Sky announced the
five winners of its award-winning Sky Zero Footprint
Fund.
The Sky Zero Footprint Fund is a multi-award-winning, £2 million advertising fund
designed to help brands accelerate and amplify initiatives that address climate
change through more sustainable products and behaviors. Now in its third
consecutive year, the Zero Footprint fund fosters the power of TV advertising to
tackle climate change by supporting campaigns that drive behavior change for a
more sustainable world. Sky believes it has a role to play in helping tackle the
climate crisis and established the Fund as part of its Sky
Zero campaign to be net-zero carbon by 2030.
Open to media agencies, creative agencies and brands in the UK and
Ireland, the fund attracts a highly competitive pool of entries — with many
businesses creating game-changing products, services and campaigns to drive more
sustainable consumer choices.
So far, the fund has won British Media Awards' 2022 Best Sustainability
Initiative, Ad Net Zero’s
2022 Media
Award
and the 2023 Media Leader Sustainability Excellence
Award.
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"It’s been an absolute honor to work on the Sky Zero Footprint Fund for the last
two years; and I’ve been so inspired by the brilliant range of applications this
year, too,” said Sarah
Jones, Director of Planning
at Sky Media. “The caliber of presentations we saw in the Footprint Fund
Dragon’s Den was truly exceptional. Thanks to our fantastic judging panel who
helped to select our winners — I can’t wait to see the ads from our final 5 in
December and to see the impact they have when they launch their campaigns.”
This year’s winners
-
Grub Club — hypoallergenic, insect-based dog
food
-
Milliways — plastic free,
plant-powered and planet-friendly gum
-
Ocean Bottle — B Corp-certified reusable
bottles that fund the collection of ocean plastic
-
OceanSaver® — ocean-safe cleaning
products
-
UpCircle — natural skincare with upcycled
ingredients.
“We are ecstatic to have made it into the final five brands in the Sky Zero
Footprint Fund,” said UpCircle co-founder Anna
Brightman. “With our
total commitment to the circular economy, we’ve been pretty disruptive in the
beauty industry since day one, setting a new standard — it’s an industry which
sends 120 billion units of packaging to landfill per year, so a new standard is
necessary! This opportunity could be pivotal for UpCircle, taking the next big
step towards making a concept like ours more mainstream. It’s incredibly
exciting to know that we now have the opportunity to show our innovative
ingredient-rescuing concept on national TV; and we can’t wait to get started.”
On August 10th, a panel of industry experts — with credentials in advertising,
creativity and sustainability — met and assessed live pitches from the
shortlisted brands at the Thinkbox HQ in Holborn. Each brand was judged
on the merits of its creativity (ability to capture the attention of the
nation); impact (the potential to drive real, tangible behavioral change); and
sustainable credibility (its authentic commitment as a business to tackle
climate change). This year’s five winning brands were selected because of their
pitch’s potential to inspire change — with each one demonstrating sustainable
values that align to Sky’s own.
William Pearson, co-founder and co-CEO
of Ocean Bottle, said: “We are thrilled to have been selected as one of the
winners of the Sky Zero Footprint Fund. With Sky's full support, Ocean Bottle
will be able to reach millions of people across the UK and fund the collection
of over 100 million plastic bottles in weight and prevent them from entering the
ocean in coastal communities around the world. We hope to help un-brainwash the
nation from the single-use habits we have all become so accustomed to, save our
pockets and the environment, and make some history in the process.”
Each of the winning businesses has been awarded £250,000 in media value. They
will now move into ad production, ahead of a final stage of judging in December
— which will see the most compelling creative securing an additional £750,000
(totalling £1 million) in media value.
All five winning ads will be produced using insights, tools and learnings from
AdGreen. Part of the UK’s Advertising Association, AdGreen supports the ad
industry shift towards net zero by eliminating the negative environmental
impacts of production — part of a recent, growing industry
push
to rein in the actual carbon footprint of the creative process — including
producing, filming, displaying and running adverts.
“Sky uses its platforms to engage audiences on climate change and encourage
steps to reduce carbon emissions,” says Fiona
Ball, Group Director of the
Bigger Picture and Sustainability at Sky; and a judge for this year’s Zero
Footprint Fund. “Over the last two years, the Sky Zero Footprint Fund has helped
produce 10 exceptional adverts — propelling sustainable brands’ messages onto
television to inspire wide, tangible behavioral change. Advertising can play a
key role in raising awareness of climate issues and inspiring changes in daily
habits, so we look forward to seeing the 2023 winners’ adverts on our TV
channels.”
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Sustainable Brands Staff
Published Aug 18, 2023 2pm EDT / 11am PDT / 7pm BST / 8pm CEST