Britannia and Talented respond to questions around Cannes-winning campaign

This year at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, Indian agency Talented clinched two Silver and one Bronze Lion for ‘Nature Shapes Britannia’, a campaign celebrating sustainable design. But as the festival dust settles and the trophies find their shelves, a new debate has emerged around the credibility of the campaign.

At the center of the storm is a LinkedIn post by Polina Zabrodskaya, an independent creative director and two-time Cannes juror, who questioned the campaign and the system that rewards the work.

“Most jurors just aren’t qualified to judge sustainability campaigns — they have neither the time, nor the knowledge to understand what’s in front of them,” she wrote in a viral LinkedIn post. “As an industry, we are actively celebrating harmful bullshit, encouraging more of it to be produced.”

The Campaign

‘Nature Shapes Britannia’ was a design-led initiative. Instead of trimming trees that obstruct billboards, Britannia reimagined the billboard shapes themselves — contouring them around the trees. The brand claimed this innovation could save 20,000 trees, shared an open-source design manual, and projected the initiative as a scalable solution toward environmental consciousness.

The campaign scored big at Cannes across categories including Outdoor, Media, and Sustainable Development Goals, and generated strong brand metrics:

• 8.3 million impressions in two weeks

• 68% rise in positive sentiment

• 149x return on campaign investment

But Zabrodskaya wasn’t buying it.

The numbers behind the story

In a detailed blog post, she dissected Britannia’s own Annual Report (FY23-24) to challenge the sustainability claims.

• Trees Saved: The campaign saved six trees. Zabrodskaya noted that this translates to “one tree for every three Cannes entries” (Talented submitted it 18 times).

• Water Usage: While the campaign touted water recycling, the report revealed a near doubling of water withdrawal — from 564,843 kL to 1,012,259 kL, in a country grappling with severe water stress.

• Energy & Emissions: Despite a billboard showcasing renewable energy, Britannia’s non-renewable energy use rose, the share of renewables fell by 6%, and Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions all increased significantly.

• Plastic Waste: The brand claimed “plastic neutrality” via Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) — but Zabrodskaya pointed out that plastic waste generation actually increased by over 40% year-on-year.

“Saving six trees while consuming an extra half-million kilolitres of water — and making a Sustainable Development Goals case study out of it — is so cynical, it’s breathtaking,” she wrote.

Communications consultant Karthik Srinivasan independently verified the data points raised, saying in the LinkedIn Post, “There are direct statements in the report that corroborate what's on the billboards. But Polina looks beyond those to the actual year-on-year impact — and on that front, her critique holds up.”

He also ran a fact-check through ChatGPT, which confirmed three out of four of Polina’s claims as accurate based on data from the same report.

The response

When contacted by Social Samosa, Britannia and Talented issued a joint response, shared below:

“At Britannia, we always value insights from experts, and constructive criticism is crucial in helping us grow and align better with the values we wish to uphold.

As an organization, we are at the nascent stage of our sustainability journey. Our intent with this campaign was to share with our consumers that we are taking deliberate, albeit small steps toward a more sustainable future. While we understand that we are far from being a benchmark in sustainability, our goal is to be transparent about our progress and inspire collective action.

The report evaluated in the mentioned post  is the statutory document of Britannia - Annual Report. We would like to bring your attention to our Sustainability Report, published last year, which provides a detailed explanation for the observed increase in the numbers. This increase correlates with the expansion of our scale of operations and an extension of our reporting boundary. Over FY 23-24, we added three facilities to our reporting scope, including our plants in Barabanki, Tirunelveli, and our dairy plant in Ranjangaon which got completely commercialised.

Importantly, if we compare the resources used against FY22-23 operations alone, the data on water intensity, plastic and emissions remains consistent,reflecting our ongoing efforts to optimize resource efficiency. Any observed variations arise due to a shift in the production mix, which is a natural outcome of dynamic operations. Below is a detailed view:

We remain committed to continuous improvement. Each year, as our operations scale, we strive to be more mindful of the resources we use and the impact we create. Sustainability is not a destination but a journey, and we are dedicated to making meaningful strides along the way.”

In a year where more campaigns than ever came wrapped in the language of climate action, social justice, and ESG, the real winner might be this uncomfortable, but necessary conversation about how we define impact, and who gets to decide.

Because in 2024, credibility isn’t just a box to tick. It’s the brief.