There’s perhaps never been a more pressing time in our history for human beings to fundamentally change their behavior, or risk facing the devastating consequences of using up our planet and its resources. Climate related extreme weather events have gotten more frequent in the last decade alone, the Earth’s population has more than quadrupled in less than 100 years, and on average, humans emit more than 100 million tons of manmade heat trapping pollution each day. To address those growing concerns and to begin rolling back the damaging behaviors that have led us here, we must change the behaviors of our everyday lives – the ways we eat, commute, buy our goods, consume our food, recycle our waste and protect those who don’t have the ability to speak up for themselves.
At the D&AD Impact Awards, the Environmental Sustainability category celebrates the ideas that help preserve the natural world and the capability of the environment to support life; where the demands placed on the environment can be met without reducing its capacity to allow all people to live well, now and in the future.
During the 2016 Impact Awards, the ideas that were recognized were innovations that worked towards efforts like preserving ecosystems, supporting people to reduce their environmental impact, creating services and systems around efficient energy sources, taking action against climate change or fighting waste and pollution.
Winner of White Pencil award, one of the highest recognitions at D&AD Impact, the Edible Six Pack Rings sought to find a solution to the high levels of waste associated with the brewing industry. Americans drank 6.3 billion gallons of beer last year, 50 percent of which came in cans, meaning most of the plastic rings that came with the packaging ended up in the ocean. That meant that over one million sea birds and 100,000 marine mammals and sea turtles were either trapped by the plastic, or ingested it and died. Saltwater Brewery, in creative partnership with We Believers, created Edible Six Pack Rings made entirely from barley and wheat remnants from the brewing process. The best part? It feeds the sea animals instead of killing them. The campaign received over 120 million social media views, over 2 million Facebook shares and 5 billion global impressions.
Another Pencil award-winner at the 2016 Impact Awards, Precious Plastic sought to make recycling easier than ever. A large majority of what we use in our daily lives is made from plastic, meaning it's used everywhere, but also ends up everywhere. Perfectly good, reusable plastic ends up in landfills, on our beaches, and in the bellies of wildlife. To fix this, Precious Plastic came up with a plan that allows people, anywhere in the world, to transform their plastic waste into new, valuable things. After creating machines that recycle the plastic, blueprints were made available for free download online, along with step-by-step instruction videos, lessons about plastic, tips and tricks and more to make it easier than ever for people to create their very own personalized, miniature, easy-to-use recycling centers.
Learn more about these winning campaigns, other winners from the Environmental Sustainability category, and how to submit your ideas, projects or initiatives to win at the 2017 Impact Awards this September.
D&AD Impact seeks to identify and celebrate great, transformative ideas that contribute towards a better, fairer and more sustainable future for all. If you think you have a campaign that makes a real and positive difference to the world then why not enter it into D&AD Impact.
