Grub Club one of five winners of Sky’s £2m sustainability ad fund

Grub Club, Milliways, Ocean Bottle, OceanSaver and UpCircle have each been given £250,000 by Sky as part of the broadcaster’s Zero Footprint ad fund.

Now in its third year, the fund – worth £2m in total – aims to tackle climate change through TV advertising by awarding media spend to sustainability-focused brands.

Each brand will now produce an ad before the final stage of judging in December. The brand deemed to have produced the most compelling creative will secure a further £750,000 in media value.

The five brands in the running for the top prize are Grub Club, a hypoallergenic insect-based dog food brand; Milliways, a plastic-free chewing gum; reusable bottle brand Ocean Bottle; eco cleaning products OceanSaver; and UpCircle, a natural skincare brand that uses upcycled ingredients.

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The judging panel includes last year’s winner, Chris Baker, cofounder of Serious Tissues, alongside Sky Sports’ sustainability lead David Garrido, Pippa Glucklich, CEO of Electric Glue and Stephen Woodford, chair of the Advertising Association.

“Sky uses its platforms to engage audiences on climate change and encourage steps to reduce carbon emissions,” says Fiona Ball, group director of Bigger Picture and sustainability at Sky. She adds:  “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.”

Grub Club’s cofounder and CEO Alessandro Di Trapani calls the fund an “incredible opportunity” to reach millions of people across the UK, while Tom Raviv, founder and CEO of Milliways says: “It’s important for us to inform the public that most gum brands are made from single-use plastics which pollute our planet and may harm our health.”

He adds: “Working with the Sky Zero Footprint Fund aligns with our mission and gives us the perfect platform to share Milliways’ story and purpose with the world.”

‘Nothing good ever came easy’: Can marketers marry profit growth with sustainability?“We hope to help ‘unbrainwash’ 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,” says William Pearson, CEO at Ocean Bottle.

While, Adam Joe Parker, marketing director at OceanSaver, says he is “absolutely cod-smacked and delighted” to have been chosen for the fund, and Anna Brightman, cofounder at UpCircle says the brand is “ecstatic”.

The ad created by period care brand Here We Flo, which won the Grand Prix £1m prize of the inaugural Sky Zero Footprint Fund in 2021, was deemed the most effective TV ad of April 2022 by The Works, a monthly study produced using Kantar Marketplace data.