Hamburgers are consumed all over the world at the rate of 150 million a day. Since they are popular and consumed frequently, the wrapping paper for Japan alone fills up 9000 football fields in a year, with a major impact on the environment, especially on forests where wild animals live. But very few are aware of this. So WWF Japan developed a solution toward large hamburger chains that would promote awareness of environmental issues to everyone using hamburgers.

Using hamburgers which are popular throughout the world as PR symbols, EARTH BURGERS were developed as sustainable hamburgers with beef, buns and wrapping paper which have all cleared environmental standards. They were provided to hamburger chains across Japan. Touchpoints were created with the desire to eat, by making them donation burgers, where 100 JPY would be donated to forest protection activities for every hamburger sold. With a symbolic product design that turns hamburgers into icons that look like the Earth, this project spread awareness and call-to-action among a wide target.

The target were Japanese people in general, since donations made toward environmental protection are significantly lower than other industrialized countries (1/108 of western countries), and large hamburger chains. Hamburgers which are popular all over the world, were used as PR symbols to send messages to change to eco-friendly ingredient procurement.

With cooperation from 25 hamburger shops that agreed to use eco-friendly ingredients, EARTH BURGERS became easy ways to make a 100JPY donation per burger. As a result, McDonald’s agreed to participate in the project.

More than 150 million hamburgers are consumed everyday around the world. By making the hamburgers wrapped with iconic wrapping paper to make it look like the Earth as the original media, the project promoted environmental awareness and call to action to a wide-ranging target. In the 25 participating hamburger shops, the hamburgers had picks with leaves (made from FSC approved paper) where people could write messages. These message leaves could be placed on tree branches of the posters on the hamburger shop wall, increasing greenery as more people participated in the cause. On the website, a support generator was installed so that people could recommend EARTH BURGERS to large hamburger chains. It was a seamless connection using appetite, to connect awareness at the shop to donation through hamburger consumption, then to support on the web, and a call-to-action toward environmental protection.

By utilizing hamburgers, which are popular throughout the world as original media, in just 3 weeks, the project was featured on TV, radio, newspaper and web in more than 140 articles/programs, with 21 million impressions, reaching 18 million. Throughout Japan, 25 hamburger shops provided EARTH BURGERS, selling 2,100 burgers. Signatures showing support numbered 2,139 and 210,000 JPY was donated to environmental protection.

Even McDonald’s Japan decided to join the project and provided procurement information that met EARTH BURGER standards on the WEB and on tray-paper at stores in Japan, leading to a more valuable result than purely numbers.

As “a delicious and eco-friendly future-standard burger” that tackles the next food issue following food-loss or plastic wastes, EARTH BURGERS are continuing to spread.