WWF exists to help create a planet where people and nature thrive, but plastic is polluting the planet and contaminating our environment.

The only way to stop plastic destroying our environment is a globally binding treaty to regulate the material.

BRIEF

Galvanise enough public support to enable the WWF to lobby governments to support the treaty.

OBJECTIVES

1: Attitude – grab the global attention.

KPI: Reach 1.75 billion people, generate 100,000 organic posts.

2: Behaviour - galvanize the planet’s people into action.

KPI: 1 million supporters, from 50 different countries.

3: Action – generate governments commitment.

WWF needed half of the UN’s members to commit to a globally binding plastic treaty to start its negotiation. This was securing 97 (over 50% so that it forces a vote) of the 193 member nations ahead the 2021 UN Environment summit.

KPI: Public commitment from 97 countries by 2020.

There is no shortage of shocking coverage that surrounds our oceans’ plastic crisis. It meant awareness about the problem peaked and spurred seemingly momentous action. Governments introduced bag levies, banned cotton buds and straws to save our oceans and wildlife.

These gestures may grab attention, but policies enacted were largely insignificant; case in point: straws only account for 0.0002% of ocean plastic.

PLASTIC ‘PARIS’ ONLY SOLUTION

Governments were taking easy action, and while it generates headlines and appease citizens, it would not stop plastic impacting all life. It was actually a distraction to the more difficult and wide-ranging policies required – a global treaty to regulate the creation, use and recycling of plastic.

To save our wildlife and environment we needed to take the issue out of the oceans and into people’s lives. We needed to flip an abstract environment problem into an unforgettable human one.

IDEA: YOUR PLASTIC DIET

Our diets now contain plastic, we are inevitably consuming it, so our bodies are becoming infested with plastic pollution.

CREDIBILITY – DECODE THE SCIENCE

We commissioned The University of Newcastle to analyse studies about human consumption of microplastics. After six months of analysis and peer review, it found the average person consumes around 100,000 microplastics every year.

QUANTIFY THE DIET

100,000 microplastics equates to approximately 250 grams of plastic a year. People are therefore ingesting 5 grams of plastic pollution every week.

What plastic object weighs 5 grams and is ubiquitous, with 20 billion of them in use? A credit card.

YOU ARE EATING A CREDIT CARD A WEEK.

With this universal fact, we could turn billions of credit cards in people’s pockets into a personal and confronting reminder of the urgent need for change. It flipped an environmental issue into a human health crisis.

CHALLENGE

How can we create people pressure on the world’s leaders to act on plastic when most people don’t feel its destruction, only its usefulness?

Plastic's infamy comes from shocking scenes about ocean pollution and the far-away environment; but it's so pervasive in nature that it’s infested our everyday environment. The ‘wonder material’ takes a millennia to decompose so only ever breaks down into trillions upon trillions of microplastics.

PLASTIC IS INSIDE US

We’re actually consuming microplastics from our food, water, and even the air. Plastic has entered the food chain, so has entered our bodies.

INSIGHT

It’s impossible to ignore plastic’s impact on nature when you’re also the creature eating, drinking and breathing the pollution.

Plastic Diet was dramatized through the credit card – a universally felt single-minded representation of the plastic pollution crisis.

Further activated by WWF offices:

• In Malaysia, MFL Cup Final soccer match informed 80,000 fans it would take them 10 seasons to eat the plastic seat they sat on.

• Across 11 Asian countries, the Asian Food Network’s celebrity chefs created recipes with 5g of plastic.

• In Hong Kong and Singapore billboards shown during mealtimes informed people they were also eating plastic.

• At the G20 and UN, packs featuring a physical version of the campaign's plastic card influenced policymakers.

All activity directed to an interactive website. Based on diet and geography, people took a test to see how much plastic they were likely ingesting a week. A personalized ‘Plastic Diet report’ was generated that people could share by signing the global petition.

ATTITUDE

4.1bn earned media - 234% of target.

BEHAVIOUR

2.03m demanding action - 200% of target

Plastic Diet became WWF’s largest and fastest growing single-action movement in its’ history.

ACTION

131 governments publicly called for an agreement on plastic pollution – 135% target.

“More than two-thirds of UN member states have declared they are open to a new agreement to stem the rising tide of plastic waste.” The Guardian.

OTHER: INFLUENCING CHANGE

In the United States, Congress tabled the ‘Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act’. The bill quotes Plastic Diet, while its sponsors used the campaign device to announce it.

The biggest plastic consuming corporations [Coca-Cola etc.] were forced to back the campaign objective for a global #PlasticPollutionTreaty.

The impact on kickstarting change was fundamental. In the words of WWF: “A global, legally binding solution to plastic would simply not have been imaginable prior to the launch of Plastic Diet"