Sustainability and communications experts have shortlisted for this year’s tve Global Sustainability Film Awards together with Fastflow Group, 18 films showcasing how companies around the world are addressing the Sustainable Development Goals. From carbon recapture filmed in Iceland, to innovative new techniques in architecture in the UK; from a Danish energy company’s complete shift to renewables, to the provision of electricity in remote villages of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the films showcase inspiring approaches to the environmental and social challenges the world faces. All entries are available to view on the Awards website.
The winners will be announced at the awards ceremony and gala dinner at BAFTA on Monday 26 November. Tickets are now available.
‘This year’s entries take us on a global tour of sustainable innovation and impact, from Bangladesh to Switzerland, from Guatemala to Greece, Spain to Vietnam and more,’ says Victoria Brooks, shortlisting chair, sustainability communications strategist, and head of programmes at the advertising women’s network, Bloom. ‘The films this year demonstrate brilliantly creative and cutting edge solutions to social and environmental challenges, the stories of which I hope will inspire true change,’ says Victoria.
Films were shortlisted in each of the five award categories: Protecting the Environment; Reshaping the Economy; Transforming Society; Sky: Beyond Plastic and Global Digital Futures.
The judges, chaired by Nick Nuttall, international director of communications for Beautiful Corporations and former spokesperson and director of communications for the Global Climate Action Summit, will select one winner in each category.
The shortlisting panels, chaired by Victoria Brooks, vice-president of the Awards, brought together expertise from the creative, corporate and sustainability fields. The panels consisted of: Ali Alvarez, award-winning filmmaker and creative director; Andrew Wilson, director of Edelman’s work on Purpose; Emma De’Ath, commissioning editor at BBC Global News; Grace Bian, vice-president of the Awards and chair of the China International Culture Stock Exchange; Karin Laljani, economist and former CEO of Corporate Citizenship; Kate Phillips OBE, former marketing director and associate director of Christian Aid; Lady Dyson, artist, carpet designer and London gallery owner; Sarah Dawkins, producer at Sky News; Sarah Whitehead, deputy head of news gathering at Sky News and Zomo Fisher, director at Accenture’s Sustainability Strategy Practice.
The shortlisted films are:
Protecting the Environment
ABB – Iceland completes ring of electric vehicle chargers circling entire country
Climeworks – A technology to reverse climate change
Hubbub – How bad is air pollution and what can we do about it
Ørsted – Love your home
World Business Council for Sustainable Development – The natural solution
Transforming Society
ABB – ABB technology innovation brings access to electricity for the Congo
Fashion 4 Change – Catwalk to creation
Hogan Lovells – Flip the switch – a documentary
HSBC and WaterAid – Rising seas – shrinking water sources
Volvo – The unseen ocean
Reshaping the Economy
CineTecture – Moulding futures
Climeworks – Capturing CO2 from air
MANTA – We the children, commit to a greener, fairer world
Sky: Beyond Plastic
Hubbub – 6 hidden plastics in your home and what you can do about them
PLASTIC ENERGY – Closing the plastic loop
The New Raw – Second nature
Global Digital Futures:
GODAN – OPEN WATER documentary web series
Femnesty Ltd – Empowering women everywhere
Notes for editors:
The tve Global Sustainability Film Awards are organised annually by the charity tve. The film competition recognises companies and institutions whose films most powerfully portray solutions for sustainability. This year’s competition has attracted 42 entries. For the third year running we are focusing on the UN Sustainable Development Goals, which set ambitious targets for world development: eradicating poverty and hunger; ensuring good health, quality education and gender equality; and setting targets for affordable and clean energy, climate action and responsible consumption and production. The president of the 2018 Awards is Claudine Blamey, group head of corporate responsibility and sustainability at Sainsbury’s. gsfa.tve.org
tve is the non-profit based in London that organises the Awards. It creates and enables others to create powerful, effective communications about the environment and sustainable development. Through film, animation, documentaries, debates and social media, the media charity reaches global audiences, giving a voice to a new generation committed to a greener and fairer world. The Awards are tve’s main annual fundraiser. www.tve.org
Fastflow Group is the Awards’ main sponsor for the fourth year running. The company provides infrastructure maintenance and improvement services to Northumbrian Water and Scottish Water, and a wide range of high pressure gas transmission engineering projects for clients such as National Grid and Cadent Gas, from bases in Washington, Tyne and Wear, and Warrington, Greater Manchester.
From Thame, Oxfordshire it delivers planned and responsive repairs for housing associations owning around 200,000 homes across the south of the UK. A recent addition to the business – County Durham and Derbyshire based Partner Group – designs and builds homes for housing associations and major asset owners across the UK.
Fastflow Group operates within the support services sector, supplying cost-effective and value-added services in a collaborative, proactive, fair and responsible manner. The customer base includes Northumbrian Water and Scottish Water, FTSE top 100 company National Grid and Housing Associations A2Dominion, Catalyst Housing, Southern Housing, Karbon Homes and Midland Heart. The company embraces the strategic, competitive advantages of a sustainable business model and conducts its business ethically, thereby establishing and maintaining long-term relationships to make a positive contribution to society.
Fastflow Group has supported the tve Global Sustainability Film Awards since 2014, and has been main sponsor since 2015. www.fastflow.co.uk
Sky has partnered with tve to launch the Beyond Plastic category this year. Last year Sky News won the Press Association Award for Environmental Storytelling, for its documentary ‘A Plastic Whale’. Sky News launched in 1989 and was the UK’s first dedicated 24-hour news channel. It reports across TV, mobile, online, social media, connected TV, radio and iPad, offering insight and analysis on the latest news stories. It has 18 news bureaux across the world, as well as alliances with major broadcasters worldwide, reaching 170 million homes in 138 countries. Sky News is owned by Sky plc: a pan-European media and telecommunications company headquartered in London. www.skynewsinternational.com
Through Sky Ocean Rescue Sky is using its voice and potential reach to inspire simple, everyday changes to stop the oceans from drowning in plastic. Since January 2017 millions have engaged with Sky Ocean Rescue and Sky has ambitious plans for future engagement. As a business, Sky is committed to leading by example and transforming its own business by eliminating all single use plastics from its operations by 2020. It is encouraging and supporting innovation to develop solutions through Sky Ocean Ventures and is working to influence others to take action. Sky Ocean Rescue forms part of the Bigger Picture which also inspires the new generation through the power of sport, and invests further in creativity and diversity in our industry to make a difference.
Grace Bian is Awards vice-president for the third year running, and chair of the China International Culture Stock Exchange. Grace has created two new categories for the 2018 Awards: AI Empowering the Future and Global Digital Futures. An inventor with 73 intellectual property rights in her name, Grace focuses on the potential of smart cities to transform society, through projects like mobile hospitals and smart health villages. Grace jointly owns a research and development centre with the China Academy of Sciences and is an economic advisor for the Chinese government. She is currently engaged in setting up platform technology for blockchain and cryptocurrency, aiming to improve the economic cycle in a way that better serves societal needs, and manages a team in Singapore which has completed 40 Initial Coin Offerings. She currently sits on boards and advisory boards for blockchain and cryptocurrency initiatives with a net worth of £billions.
Press Association has partnered with tve to facilitate the Press Association Award for Environmental Storytelling for the second year running. The award recognises television programming – news, current affairs and factual in a range of formats – which best engages the audience with the environment.
PA is the UK’s leading provider of multimedia content and services. Established as the Press Association in 1868, PA remains the national news agency for the UK and Ireland, serving a broad range of customers including major media and digital brands around the world, businesses and public sector organisations.
In addition to the newswire, PA’s products and services span pictures, video, data APIs, hosted live blogs, graphics, listings pages, social media curation and page production. The news agency is part of the PA Group of specialist media companies. www.pressassociation.com/group-overview/
Contact:
Lucy Walmsley, tve co-ordinator, business and sustainability, at Lucy.Walmsley@tve.org.uk
Stefen Sandell, tve communications at Stefen.Sandell@tve.org.uk