Cannes Lions Adds Sustainability Questions to 2023 Awards

Submissions open at the moment for the 2023 Cannes Lions, which shall be awarded at The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, held June 19-23 in southern France.

For the primary time this yr, the organizers are requesting data on the carbon footprint and sustainability affect of every artistic submission.

A brand new set of questions on the shape contains to what extent variety, fairness and inclusion was thought of within the conceptualization, manufacturing and affect of the work, and the enterprise development that resulted from it. Whereas the strikes have been praised, many be aware that international requirements of measurement are essential earlier than these parts are made obligatory.

“Cannes Lions has at all times been an agent of change throughout the business,” Anna Lungley, chief sustainability officer at Dentsu, informed Adweek. “In the event that they’re setting down judging standards associated to DEI and carbon, then that’s actually, actually necessary.”

Laying the groundwork

For this primary yr, reporting round sustainability, DEI and development data isn’t obligatory.

“As a result of it’s the primary yr, we didn’t need to spring it on folks. So we thought it might be unfair to make it obligatory,” stated CEO of Cannes Lions Simon Prepare dinner. “The entire level is that we’re making an attempt to get a base. As a result of for the time being, we simply don’t have any visibility.”

Prepare dinner wouldn’t share whether or not this reporting can be obligatory sooner or later, or whether or not the Lions would deny utility charges for submissions sooner or later that didn’t embody ample element relating to carbon emissions measurement, or sure sustainability, DEI or development requirements.

Customary measurement

The present sustainability submission questions ask whether or not the carbon emissions of a chunk of labor had been measured, with a hyperlink to Cannes Lions’ associate Advert Web Zero’s five-step action plan for decreasing the promoting business’s local weather affect. A second query asks, “What consideration was given to the sustainable improvement, manufacturing and working of the work?”

Nonetheless, for these inquiries to be taken into critical consideration throughout judging, there should be a clearly outlined normal. Proper now, it’s unclear what that might be. Whereas Advert Web Zero gives a place to begin, it doesn’t have a transparent benchmark of success—arguably, nobody does.

Gemma Redgrave, international advertising director for AKQA, handles all of the company’s award submissions. The WPP-owned store has a few $250,000 annual price range for all awards—and Cannes is just one of many. The charges for every Lion vary from round $680 to $2,800, relying on the timing and the award.

As businesses plan easy methods to spend their award budgets annually, reporting necessities and certifications are likely to layer on prime of the baseline submission worth. Whereas AKQA helps including data associated to sustainability and DEI, Redgrave stated {that a} clear deal with measurable progress would assist businesses justify the extra prices.

“There’s extra readability that’s wanted,” Redgrave stated. “How that data is collected, saved, after which used—when it comes to allocating awards—stays to be seen. Something that drives optimistic change, we must always completely be doing it. If it’s lip service, why are we doing it?”

Nonetheless, the burden of these additional prices falls disproportionately on smaller agencies and people with out the backing of a serious holding firm.

Kelly Taylor, new enterprise and advertising director at London-based company Creature, stated her company needed to forgo one award entry final yr that required a expensive sustainability membership platform—one that might’ve been redundant given Creature’s different certifications and memberships. Whereas the company was aligned with the values of the award necessities, it simply wasn’t within the price range for a small, 50-person store.

Cannes can do higher

An important query that the brand new sustainability-related submission necessities elevate for Jake Dubbins, managing director of company Media Bounty and co-chair of the Aware Promoting Community, is how far alongside the Advert Web Zero motion plan it’ll go.

Whereas the primary 4 actions deal with the local weather affect of company operations, advert productions, media planning and occasions, the fifth motion will get to the heart of the industry. It goals to “harness promoting’s energy to assist client habits change,” i.e., to alter the metric by which promoting is measured.

The chance, Dubbins stated, is that “the sustainability half turns into actually a tick field train in epic greenwashing.” If the broader cultural affect of promoting isn’t taken into consideration, the present requirements would permit main polluters to win awards just because they used businesses who cleaned up their very own operations and manufacturing.

Nonetheless, Lungley believes juries could also be the place Cannes Lions shapes the awards extra clearly than throughout the said coverage necessities.

“You see these lovely campaigns which have an truly pushed social or environmental affect, and also you see them coming from organizations who’re truly behaving in a means that has a detrimental affect on society or the setting,” She famous. At that time, it’s as much as the jury. “Whether or not or not the standards is obligatory, you’ll see juries taking that duty very significantly.”