And The Hottest News From Cannes Is…

So obviously, the only thing happening on the planet last week was the Cannes Lions. My feed is a slideshow of badges, winners, yachts and chat about what to do about AI.

Yet those few advertising folk still stuck in London will have noticed a rival event taking place: Climate Action Week. Thousands of organisations, businesses, policymakers and activists have been queueing up near the Iris office, lanyards at the ready to discuss how to solve the other defining challenge of our time.

The one thing those in France and London both have in common will have been experiencing the hottest June day on record and the kind of weather that would have seemed extraordinary even a decade ago.

For me, the cognitive dissonance is jarring. As an industry we pride ourselves on being the world’s ‘creative problem solvers’, yet seem busy patting ourselves on the back while we talk about anything but how to tackle this existential crisis that is literally (for those without air conditioning) keeping us up at night.

Or am I doing us a disservice? Actually, are Cannes Lions and Climate Action Week more aligned than we think?

A quick fact check. According the world’s scientists, this European heatwave is the most severe and widespread ever, and only possible due to the climate crisis driven by fossil fuel burning. It’s affecting nearly half of Europe’s 850 largest cities and based on previous data is likely to have caused tens of thousands of premature deaths. Yet in a few years, we will look back on these temperatures with nostalgia as the problem accelerates and new heat records are broken.

Today’s heat is unavoidable but the bigger problem is solvable. Scientists have laid out a clear path for achieving Net Zero in time to alleviate the worst of the problem. Engineers have developed technology that if scaled quickly enough can wean us off fossil fuels in time. And the economics of energy is being reshaped before our eyes as countries like China drive down the cost of solar and wind at rates far faster than we imagined possible.

Yet a major problem stands in the way of change: desire.

The defining contradiction of the modern age is that people want more. More novelty. More status. More stuff. The entire infrastructure of modern consumer culture has been built to make that wanting feel natural, normal and relentless. Our industry has made consumption a form of identity, and made the act of buying something new feel like an essential part of being a modern person.

Yet the planet is telling us, with increasing urgency, that we need to consume less, waste less and emit less. If all of us were to achieve the lifestyles we aspire to, we would need to 10X the number of planet earths we have. We’re desiring the wrong thing.

At its core, this isn’t a scientific or technical problem. It’s a cultural one. And the good news is that some of the most interesting work being celebrated at Cannes this week is wrestling with this.

It’s been great to see IKEA’s Preowned initiative in the running for a Titanium. A programme that isn’t about people wanting less, but building an ecosystem that makes that desire more sustainable. It’s also a reminder that the best sustainability ideas don’t have to be too clever - in many ways this was the obvious next step in IKEA’s sustainability strategy and an idea I touched on in 2023 based on the work they were already doing. But it is designed in a way that is seamless, attractive and genuinely desirable extension of the IKEA ecosystem.

Perhaps the greatest accolades should go to BackMarket - already a poster child for sustainable business models who have matched it with bold campaign work. ‘Let’s End Fast Tech’ alerts us to the crisis unfolding before us at the rate of a phone upgrade cycle. There's a real-world signal here: circular consumption is moving from the margins to the mainstream. Increasing numbers of people are comfortable — proud, even — buying things with a previous owner, particularly when brands help remove the friction and the stigma.

Meanwhile there are other notable winners: the ‘Faroe Island Space Program’ hijacked our renewed fascination with other planets to draw attention to an innovative renewable energy programme, powered by the gravitational power of the moon on the tides. ‘Soil Stay’ became an ‘AirBnB for soil’, helping farmers source soil types that would better support their specific environment. ‘The Trojan Fax’ tackled the ease with which local governments ignore sustainability initiatives by hacking the technology of cooler times: the fax machine.

Yet despite this, we can count the number of award winning creative ideas focused on the climate challenge on our fingers - and if anything, the number has declined over the past five years. In many ways this is because the ‘crisis category’ is more competitive than ever - with war, health, AI and fascism all competing for attention.

It’s important though we remember that, while currently unfashionable, the climate crisis is a kind of ‘meta crisis’ that underpins many of these other challenges. And recognise that the opposition isn't going quietly. Ultra-fast fashion continues to thrive. Algorithms have become extraordinarily efficient at manufacturing the feeling that whatever you bought last week is already insufficient. Entire business models are premised on accelerating dissatisfaction.

Which is exactly why creativity matters so much right now. Many of the challenges being discussed at Climate Action Week are ones that need cultural creativity to solve them: redesigning systems, removing friction, making better choices more desirable and new behaviours feel normal. As more records get broken and each Cannes Lions gets a little bit hotter I’m optimistic we’ll see a creative renaissance grow.

Previous Cannes Grand Prix winners have gone on to become genuine parts of everyday consumer culture. Notpla, the edible seaweed packaging, is being adopted by manufacturers worldwide. The Australian One House to Save Many has shifted from prototype to mass market. These aren't just awarded ideas — they're early sketches of different possible futures, stress-tested in public and proved viable through creative ambition.

For a century Cannes has proven that creativity can make people want things? We know the answer. The challenge for this century is different: can creativity make a sustainable future feel every bit as desirable as the higher-carbon one we've spent so long perfecting? Can it make better choices feel like upgrades rather than sacrifices? Can it redesign systems, remove friction, and make new behaviours feel like the obvious ones?

If it can — and I think it can — then Cannes won't be a distraction from the climate conversation. It'll be one of the places where the answer gets invented.

Ben Essen is Global CSO at Iris