Sustainable Development Goals Lions: Cannes 2021 Decoded

The 2030 Calculator from Farm Sweden for Swedish fintech startup Doconomy has won the Grand Prix award for this category.

The product carbon footprint tool allows brands to calculate the carbon footprint of their products, based on the emissions created from manufacturing and transport up until the point of sale.

To complete a product carbon footprint calculation, the user has to provide detailed and accurate information on the weight and material of each product part, or on each piece of packaging material, as well as information on the suppliers, manufacturing facilities and distributors involved in its creation. From there an accurate carbon footprint of the product can be ascertained.

We spoke with Jury President Eduardo Maruri, president and chief executive of Grey Europe and VP Grey Global Creative Board, to hear his views on trends in the category.

What were the positive trends in this year's entries?

We saw more technology applied to sustainable development goals - in the form of AI and Deep Fake, and some incredible game-changing ideas in terms of climate change and reducing inequalities. We also saw more integration of long-format films into sustainable development goal problem-solving.

And what were you less impressed with, what should those entering in future avoid?

There are still a lot of one off stunts to create awareness and we saw a few corporate programs with no creative idea. Or worse, brands trying to win an award for collecting their own trash.

And we didn’t see enough creative solutions that addressed hunger and poverty.

The Sustainable Development Goals Lions celebrate creative problem solving, solutions or other initiatives that harness creativity and seek to positively impact the world.

There were only 2 UK winners in this category.

Bronze Lion for AMV BBDO for Address Pollution.org for for Central Office for Public Interest.

Bronze Lion for Grey London/Grey Ecuador for the Government of Ecuador/Ministry of the Environment.