Originally published in Campaign Magazine – The Ad Net Zero Awards are Campaign’s latest offering to recognise work in the media industry that strives to be more sustainable and drive change.

Despite being a champion of sustainability for more than 15 years, last year marked the launch of Levi’s first sustainability campaign: Buy Better, Wear Longer. At the heart of this was a drive to address some of the core issues within the fashion industry: over-consumption, waste and landfills.

The denim brand did its research and learned that consumers were keen to adopt more sustainable behaviours – but needed help on how to do so. In partnership with Vice Media Group, the brand focused on educating its audience about the entire life cycle of a product – wearing, caring and buying – thus giving them the tools to experience more responsible fashion consumption.

As well as highlighting the importance of buying quality clothes, Levi’s provided an app to give buyers tips on how to care for their clothes and even upcycle them. What’s more, the brand decided to address the amount of Levi’s products bought on discount to reduce wastage and returns by retargeting creatives on full-price products.

Sustainability wasn’t limited to just the product. Some of the partnerships that came from this new policy included Ecosia, a search engine that uses ad revenue from searches to plant trees, and OceanHero, a search engine that helps save the oceans.

Judges’ comments:

“The message that underpins this campaign is a critical one to land. Levi’s is well positioned to deliver it with authenticity, and it did. Thoughtful and compelling, it comes across that it left no stone unturned in trying to make this a sustainable campaign. Good campaign and consideration of the environmental impact throughout.”

You can read the full list of Ad Net Zero winners here and see other recent award wins in EMEA such as OMD UK’s Agency of the Year win at the Media Week Awards.