WRAP wins £200,000 Sky Zero Footprint Funding to bring recycling back to life

  • Global environmental action NGO WRAP receives Sky Zero Footprint Fund to deliver advertising campaign
  • Recycling to get new lease of life with 2026 national advertising campaign

Global environmental action NGO WRAP has received a boost to its communications campaign with funding from the prestigious Sky Zero Footprint Fund. The organisation will receive £200,000 advertising spend awarded under the Fund’s Catalyst Category, given to charities that are “driving behavioural change by unrelenting environmental commitment.” 

David Wilson, Director of Communications at WRAP, said “We want to bring circular living into every boardroom and every home, and this funding gives us a huge platform to show people the difference their recycling has in helping to minimise the UK’s carbon footprint. Nearly 50% of greenhouse gases emissions come from the products we buy and the food we eat. Recycling packaging and food waste stops tonnes of waste being buried or burnt and avoids between 10-15 million tonnes of emissions a year.” 

The advert picks up on WRAP’s successful Rescue Me – Recycle campaign. 

Hannah and Matt

A bold, emotionally rich treatment designed to flip the script on recycling from a chore to a rescue mission, Rescue Me – Recycle has run for two consecutive annual Recycle Weeks. It has seen the cast of recycling characters take a petition to the Prime Minister at Number Ten to ask for help from the UK to recycle more, and a new character ‘Minty’ the toothpaste tube raising awareness that tubes can now be recycled - following WRAP’s success working with the oral health sector to transform all toothpaste tubes placed on the UK market to 100% recyclable*. 

The campaign addresses a core dilemma highlighted in WRAP’s annual citizen recycling tracker - that while 90% of UK homes regularly recycle, 79% of people bin one or more items that could be recycled. 

Fiona Ball, Group Director of Bigger Picture and Sustainability at Sky, said: “The Sky Zero Footprint Fund is an initiative we’re really proud of at Sky, mobilising brands to drive behaviour change and help consumers make more sustainable choices. Advertising plays such an important role in inspiring changes to daily habits that will help us all on the journey to a low carbon world. We had an incredible calibre of inspiring brands enter this year across the three categories, and I can’t wait to see the final ads these six winners will produce.”

WRAP is a global environmental action charity transforming our broken product and food systems to create Circular Living for the benefit of climate, nature and people. For twenty-five years, WRAP has delivered programs that reduce CO2 and waste, restore nature, and change peoples’ behaviour. It is the charity behind the high profile behaviour change campaigns Love Food Hate Waste and Recycle Now, helping UK citizens adopt more sustainable habits. 

The Sky Zero Footprint Fund is a £2 million initiative launched by Sky as part of its commitment to achieve net zero carbon by 2030. It aims to support brands that are dedicated to driving positive behavioural change and accelerating sustainable initiatives.

Notes to Editor

Photo shows: Hannah Jarratt – Marketing and Campaigns Lead and Matt Brassington – Creative and Digital Lead WRAP who created the advert and presented to the Sky Zero Footprint Fund judging panel. 

*Under Simpler Recycling legislation, all local authorities will have to collect toothpaste tubes by the end of March 2026. WRAP is working to raise awareness of the change. Currently around 74 councils collect at kerbside, while all Boots stores across the UK accept toothpaste tubes and other hard-to-recycle items through their Recycle at Boots scheme, where Advantage Card points can be earned for participating

WRAP is a global environmental action NGO catalysing policy makers, businesses and individuals to transform the systems that create our food, textiles and manufactured products. Together these account for nearly 50% of global greenhouse emissions. Our goal is to enable the world to transition from the old take-make-dispose model of production to more sustainable approaches that will radically reduce waste and carbon emissions from everyday products. To do so we examine sustainability challenges through the lens of people’s day-to-day lives and create solutions that can transform entire systems to benefit the planet, nature and people.

Our work includes: UK Plastics Pact, UK Food and Drink Pact, UK Textiles Pact and the campaigns Love Food Hate Waste and Recycle Now. We run Food Waste Action Week and Recycle Week.

Please contact: wrap.ngo

Contact details

Ian Palmer

PR and Media Relations Manager

Mobile: 07802 873 431 

Email: Ian.Palmer@WRAP.NGO