The United Nations climate campaign ‘The People’s Seat’ received the gold award for PR at the Cannes Lions Awards on 19 June.
Sir David Attenborough launched the climate action campaign in December 2018, inviting people to share their thoughts on climate change. Thousands of influencers from around the world joined the campaign by inviting their social media followers to use the hashtag #TakeYourSeat to gather people’s experiences and opinions, and with a reach of 1.3 billion, the jury commended the campaigns innovative approach to raise climate awareness.
The award was given to Grey London advertising agency, a member of the United Nations’ Common Ground initiative, and UNFCCC, beating some 80 entries from all over the world that were shortlisted in the Sustainable Development Goals category.
ActNow chatbot
Another large component of the campaign is the interactive ActNow chatbot that recommends daily actions for people to reduce their carbon footprints – like traveling more sustainably, saving energy or eating less meat. By registering and sharing their actions, people send a message that individuals want climate action and are willing to take it. ActNow highlights the impact that collective action can have at this critical moment in our planet’s history. The more people act, the bigger the impact.
The campaign is ongoing and recently launched a sustainable food challenge that invites people around the world to make their individual contribution to sustainable food consumption and to share their recipes online.
Climate Action Summit
On 23 September 2019, the United Nations Secretary-General will convene a Climate Action Summit in New York, and is calling on world leaders to come with concrete, realistic plans to enhance their nationally determined contributions by 2020, in line with reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 45 per cent over the next decade, and to net zero emissions by 2050.