• Sky Media announces that Grub Club has won the £1m Grand Prix of the 2023 Sky Zero Footprint Fund.

• The £2million advertising initiative has been running for three consecutive years, aiming to inspire behavioural change for a more sustainable future.

• The other finalists Milliways, Ocean Bottle, OceanSaver® and UpCircle secured £250k in media value, which will be used to support their sustainability initiatives.

• All ads will be unveiled to UK consumers in 2024

Grub Club has been unveiled by Sky Media as the recipient of the Grand Prix prize of the 2023 Sky Zero Footprint Fund. The £2million advertising initiative is designed to support and encourage the nation to #GoZero, by raising awareness of the climate crisis and using the power of TV to inspire actions to protect the planet. Launched in 2021, the fund has contributed £6m to amplify businesses that promote behavioural change and deliver tangible positive impact.

Grub Club which produces insect protein dog food, was selected as the winner of the Grand Prix £1million media value prize. Four other finalists, Milliways, Ocean Bottle, OceanSaver® and UpCircle secured £250,000 as part of the scheme.

Hugh Petit, Co-Founder at Grub Club said: “We’re ecstatic to be announced as winners of the grand prize. Our journey starts here with our insect-based dog food that is not only nutritious and delicious for our pets, but it’s also helping to save the planet. By converting 1% of the UK’s 12M dogs to Grub Club, we can save up to 180,000 tonnes of C02e emissions, which is equivalent to a whopping 22.5K trips around the world in a car.

“We’re dog food with purpose and Sky Media is giving us a larger platform to be able to commit to having a real measurable impact on pets and the planet through the power of TV.”

The tough decision was determined yesterday, on Thursday, 7th December, at the Soho Hotel in London, following presentations from each brand showcasing their sustainability initiatives and unveiling their ads. The winning campaign was chosen by a panel of expert judges with considerable experience in advertising, creativity, and sustainability. Judges included Stephen Woodford (Chair of the Advertising Association); Sarah Jones (Director of Planning at Sky Media); Jo Fenn (Global Director of AdGreen); David Garrido (Presenter at Sky Sports); Gideon Spanier (UK Editor in chief of Campaign); Chris Baker (Co-Founder of Serious Tissues); Pippa Glucklich (Chief Executive Office of Electric Glue); Michelle Carvil (Marketing Consultant); Rosie Arnold (Creative Consultant); Richard Shotton (Behavioural Scientist); Dino Myers-Lamptey (founder of The Barber Shop); Marianne Matthews (Group Head, Responsible Business & Sustainability at Sky) and Cara French (Head of Strategic Partnerships at Media Trust).

The judges were impressed with the creative presentations from all the finalists. After thorough deliberation, Grub Club clinched the Grand Prix million-pound prize due to its ability to shake up its industry, it’s fun and bold creative and because it’s a simple sustainable swap that anyone can make. The winning ad was crafted and produced in partnership with Small World Collective and Nusa Films.

Sarah Jones Director of Planning at Sky Media commented, “We’re so pleased to have run the Sky Zero Footprint Fund for its third consecutive year. In total we’ve given £6million in media value to supporting businesses that are helping to tackle climate change by offering consumers sustainable alternatives.

All five winners will play a crucial role in inspiring the nation to make environmentally conscious changes using the power and reach of TV. Thanks so much to all our 2023 entrants and finalists – the standard this year was exceptional. A massive congratulations to Grub Club for securing the £1 million Grand Prix. We can’t wait to see all our winners make their debut on TV in 2024.”

The five winning ads were all produced following best practice advice and recommendations from the Advertising Association’s AdGreen programme.

Established by Sky, the Footprint Fund is part of the Sky Zero campaign to decarbonise its business operations and commitment to encourage its customers to #GoZero, by using its content and channels to raise awareness of the climate crisis and inspire viewers with actions they can take to protect the planet. The five finalists of Sky Zero’s Footprint Fund (in alphabetical order) are:

Grub Club

Grub Club is leading the Sustainable Pet Food Revolution by replacing the traditional sources of protein found in pet food with insect protein. Born out of the fact that the pet food industry generates over 100m tonnes of CO2 emissions annually, Grub Club is on a mission to empower as many paws as humanly possible as we strive towards a more sustainable future.

Milliways

Milliways is plastic-free, plant-based and planet-friendly chewing gum. The best-selling and award-winning range is fully biodegradable, aspartame-free, sugar-free, vegan and compostable. Most chewing gum brands are made from artificial additives and chewy plastic ingredients which may cause harm to our health and our environment. Milliways is on a mission to make its Super Natural Gum the norm for everyone, every day. Available in a variety of flavours including Peppermint, Mighty Mint, Bubble Mint and Watermelon, you can grab a pack of Milliways at any Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Pret A Manger, Costa, Whole Foods Ocado and WH Smith nationwide.

Ocean Bottle

The ocean is our most valuable resource in fighting climate change and without a healthy ocean there is no us. But it’s choking with plastic and by 2050 plastic is expected to outweigh all fish in the ocean. In its first TV campaign Ocean Bottle connects us to the issue by showing a weird but familiar dystopian world where plastic has replaced fish and invites us to see that another future is possible.

Every Ocean Bottle product funds the collection of 1000 plastic bottles.

OceanSaver®

OceanSaver® exists to save Ocean life from the plastic pollution and harmful chemicals in 28 billion single-use plastic cleaning products created every year. Our plastic-free, plant based Laundry, Cleaning Sprays, and Dishwashing products clean like the leading brands without harming Ocean life. They are affordable and easy to buy in your local Tesco, ASDA, Ocado, and Amazon. Join over 100,000 people who are saying “pollocks to plastic” and become an OceanSaver today. The Ocean will thank you.

UpCircle

One third of all food in the UK is wasted, yet nearly one third of people have a skincare routine. That’s one huge opportunity to save the planet through skincare. At UpCircle, we make sustainable skincare products from ingredients that would otherwise be discarded. We’re stocked in household retailers like Holland & Barrett, Ocado, The Fragrance Shop, Sephora, Look Fantastic, Superdrug, Deliveroo, Whole Foods US, Walmart and more. Our brand has seen staggering growth in the last seven years, selling hundreds of thousands of products per year, in over 45 different countries. In fact, an UpCircle best seller sells every 90 seconds. We have over 25,000 5* reviews and a cult following that we fondly call our “UpCirclers”. It all started when we discovered that more than 500,000 tonnes of coffee grounds that are consumed each year in the UK alone are sent to landfill (where they produce methane). On discovering this, my brother Will and I decided to start collecting coffee grounds from cafes across London and transforming them into skincare products.

But it’s not just coffee! We’ve come a long way since then and now upcycle more than 50 by-product ingredients – upcycled oat husks, rose petals, hibiscus acids and orange peel wax are now all being rescued for our latest launches. We’ve also extended the circular approach that we take to our ingredients to packaging too, and have now refilled 65,000 pieces of packaging via our “Return, Refill, Reuse” scheme.

Notes to editors

Qualifying conditions and offer prize confirmation can be found on the fund website. To get all further details on the Sky Zero Footprint Fund, visit www.skymedia.co.uk/skyzerofootprintfund/.