Winner: The Walt Disney Company Disney’s Friends for Change: Project Green
With the goal of empowering kids with the skills, tools and knowledge to make simple changes to help the environment, The Walt Disney Company’s Corporate Citizenship team created Friends For Change: Project Green. Miley Cyrus, the Jonas Brothers and Selena Gomez appeared on-air to invite kids to register online and pledge specific actions such as turning off the lights and switching to reusable water bottles. The program has engaged over 2 million kids who could cut 70,000 tons of carbon emissions annually. —BM
Campaign Lesson Learned: “Small steps can add up to make big differences,” says Jennifer Sloan, director of citizenship and engagement for The Walt Disney Company. “We currently have over 3 million actions taking place and have funded projects in over 21 countries.”
Honorable Mentions:
Walmart Announces Goal to Eliminate Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Global Supply Chain with Treehugger.com: Walmart built upon its sustainability pledge by partnering with environmental news source Treehugger.com to announce an aggressive goal of eliminating 20 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions from its global supply chain by the end of 2015. Treehugger.com moderated an exclusive webcast that was hosted on Walmartstores.com, and Walmart’s communications team leveraged their internal platforms and performed extensive media outreach.
USANA Health Services - USANA Green: USANA’s employee-led Green program was designed with the goal of reducing the company’s usage of energy, water and packaging materials. An energy audit and the implementation of a scaled-down distribution strategy for their flagship product’s box led to a 30% decrease in annual paper usage, a 12% decrease in electricity usage, and saved 1.6 tons of paper materials and $20,000 by reducing cardboard packaging.
Cone, Inc. - Timberland’s “Don’t Tell Us it Can’t Be Done”: An integrated campaign that leveraged traditional and social media helped Timberland increase brand visibility and promote the company’s environmental efforts during the United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP15). Top-tier media placements complemented coverage on Timberland’s Earthkeepers blog, which featured on-the-ground reporting to educate consumers on climate change.