On October 10, 2022 we started the FrieslandCampina Footprint Challenge. A worldwide sustainability competition with the goal to reduce your personal footprint and grow your handprint in 40-days.
It was an exciting battle between 2000 participants from 28 countries with one collective mission: help create a sustainable future for all of us. This is really important because our footprint is too big. Globally we live like we have 1.7 planets, but we only have one… To create a sustainable future, we need everyone to take action: the government, companies and consumers. As a company, FrieslandCampina is taking steps towards achieving a more sustainable future, but they want to do this together with their employees to create maximum impact. That’s why we organized the FrieslandCampina Footprint Challenge together. The big question was: which team collects the most points by doing sustainable actions in 40 days?
The start
We kick-started the challenge during FrieslandCampina’s sustainability week with an online kick-off event for all participants. It was a fun event, but also another wake-up call as to why we must take action. Footprint Ambassador Sakhawat Hussein from Pakistan talked about the recent floods in his country, it was heartbreaking. He urged everyone to actively participate, because we have to stop climate change together. So that’s what we did!
“Sustainability is a key part of our life. If we miss opportunities like the Footprint Challenge, we ignore the needs of our future generation. Thanks to my organization for giving me this wonderful opportunity.” – participant
Over 60,000 sustainable actions
During the 40-day challenge we challenged participants to take small sustainable actions to reduce their footprint and grow their handprint. By doing these actions for 40 days, you create new habits and a sustainable mindset that is here to stay.
“Very nice tool and a very friendly way of motivating people. I didn’t feel judged for not having done all the right things so far but I got motivated to do better now!”- participant
Every week we dived into a new theme together, like energy, water, circularity and CO2. Participants did action at home and at work, to make their own lives more sustainable and to contribute to a more sustainable FrieslandCampina. In total, all participants together took over 60,000 sustainable actions in 40 days.
“Nice, playful way to raise more awareness on sustainability and start immediately with making an impact by taking concrete actions.” – participant
Impact
The Footprint Challenge started with the Footprint Scan, which gave participants insight into the size of their own footprint. On average, they reduced the footprint with 2,854 m2 per person (-7.9%) to 3.31 hectares. In total, together reduced the footprint with 346 hectares (around 484 soccer fields). That’s an incredible result!
More positive impact
Every week we also challenged participants with a ’handprint action”. Your handprint is your positive impact. By inspiring other people, like your family, friends, neighbors, colleagues etc. to also take sustainable action, you grow your positive impact. On average, participants inspired 12 other people outside of the challenge, which helped to increase our impact all over the world.
The winning team
It was a close call, since a few teams dominated the Top 3 during the challenge. In the end, Team Go to Win from Vietnam won the first edition of the FrieslandCampina Footprint Challenge! Runners up are QAO- FCH from Vietnam in second place and Team Sukkur from Pakistan came in third.
The winning country
The FrieslandCampina Footprint Challenge was also a battle between 28 countries. The winning country of this first edition of the FrieslandCampina Footprint Challenge is… India! Het winnende land van deze eerste editie is… India!
What’s next?
The FrieslandCampina Footprint Challenge might be over, but our journey towards a sustainable future continues. All participants created new habits and a sustainable mindset that are here to stay. They will continue to take new steps to reduce their footprint and to contribute to FrieslandCampina’s sustainable ambitions.
“Thank you very much for organizing this. The impact of this challenge was huge! I am very positively surprised by how much I learnt about sustainability, and I can truly say that participating in this challenge has changed my life for the better so, thank you!” – participant
