2011 Winners & Shortlists

The Brief

Batelco, Bahrain’s leading Telecommunications Company, wanted to design a notepad for internal use. The problem was that environmental concern is not one of the highest priorities to the Bahraini community. With restricted land, Bahrain’s landfills need to be carefully controlled. Yet, of Bahrain’s daily waste 800 tonnes is comprised of recyclable paper. However chemicals used for recycling are not entirely environmentally friendly. Batelco’s 1600 employees in Bahrain use 16 million sheets of paper per year themselves. The challenge was to produce notepads for Batelco without adding to the problem.

Creative Execution

The environment communication messages were unusually, in a humourous light hearted vein and then drove the message at the end. Because only when people would be interested would they first take notice and then action. By using every sheet of paper twice which would otherwise be used only once, our mailers directly influenced paper consumption and created awareness in Bahrain and the region.

Describe the creative solution to the brief/objective.

We collected used sheets of paper in boxes placed around the Batelco office. The sheets were then flipped around, cut and turned into notepads to write on the blank sides. The rest of the paper was stacked, wrapped into reams and used for printing again on the blank sides, which as we checked with Xerox, wasn’t harmful to the printer. The notepads and the reams were mailed to Batelco employees around the network. Our notepad covers were 8 Different environmental communication messages, which covered topics such as the conservation of electricity, oxygen, water and more.

Results

We cut paper consumption of Batelco offices around the network by 50%. What began as a notepad inspired 15 local companies and Batelco’s regional network to adopt the initiative and they together will save104 tonnes of paper or nearly 2200 trees It spread environmental awarenesss in Bahrain and grew into a regional movement.