We’ve won the NGO/Charity category at the Campaign Ad Net Zero Awards 2026 for our festival OOH campaign with Material Focus, Recycle Your Electricals.
We’re delighted to announce that December19 has won the NGO/Charity category at the Campaign Ad Net Zero Awards 2026 - the industry’s benchmark for work that drives genuine environmental impact, run by Campaign in partnership with Ad Net Zero, the global sustainable advertising initiative founded by the Advertising Association with the IPA and ISBA.
The win recognises Catching Disposal at the Drop, our out-of-home campaign for Material Focus, Recycle Your Electricals and follows Gold in the Platform for Good: National Social Impact Award at the Outdoor Media Awards earlier this year.
The Bigger Question
The brief asked for awareness. We asked a different question: if this audience already cares, is awareness really the problem?
The UK is the world’s second-highest producer of e-waste per capita, yet only 30% of small electricals are recycled. Brand tracking showed 18–34-year-olds were the most sustainability-conscious cohort and the least likely to recycle. Awareness was high. Behaviour wasn’t moving. So we stopped advertising the behaviour and started interrogating the moment it happens.
The Campaign
18–34s over-index for festival attendance and they arrive carrying portable chargers, handheld fans and vapes that are bought for the weekend and binned by Monday. Festivals aren’t a media channel. They’re disposal hotspots: the one moment where intention, item and infrastructure can meet.
Across July and August 2025 we built a national recycling intervention at five major UK festivals - Wireless, Latitude, Reading, Leeds and Creamfields. Rail D6s primed audiences at departure stations. 100% electric Digivans from Mobile Media carried the message along approach roads. On site, stage screens featuring HypnoCat and Material Focus’s signature pink bins closed the loop. Location-personalised creative; “Humans of Finsbury Park, recycle your electricals”, turned a national initiative into a local conversation.
The campaign landed not as advertising, but as infrastructure.
The Results
By October 2025, independent brand tracking showed 18–34s actively dropping off their electricals had risen from 64% to 75% - an 11-percentage-point shift representing approximately 1.5 million more young adults recycling. The change persisted well beyond festival season, proving habit formation rather than temporary compliance.
Carbon was measured throughout using the IPA Media Carbon Calculator (compulsory on every December19 media plan) reduced at source through electric vehicles, existing digital infrastructure and zero print production, with residual emissions offset through verified Ecologi projects.
Our thanks to the team at Material Focus and Recycle Your Electricals for their ambition and trust, and to Mobile Media and our festival media owner partners. Proof that the bigger question doesn’t just make better advertising — it makes better outcomes for the planet.
Full details of the Campaign Ad Net Zero Awards 2026 winners at campaignadnetzeroawards.com/winners-2026
Read the Campaign article here: https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/campaign-ad-net-zero-awards-2026-winners-revealed/4411wc7syr8s9433m8g3ekw6wq
