Britannia and Talented respond to greenwashing accusations

Polina Zabrodskaya, who has judged Cannes Lions twice and has seen how these awards get decided shared her take about Britannia's Cannes-Winning Sustainability Campaign in a social media post. "Here’s my honest opinion: 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. They see a beautiful case study that sounds somewhat convincing and vote for a Lion."

In her Substack piece titled "I Fact-Checked This Cannes-Winning Sustainability Campaign. It's Bullshit," Polina Zabrodskaya analyses Britannia’s Cannes Lions entry ‘Nature Shapes Britannia’. The campaign, which claimed to save six trees by designing billboards around them and projected the potential to save 20,000 more, is called out as a hollow performance of climate action. Zabrodskaya remarks, “One day, ad awards entries will be taught in universities… ‘Vanity Metrics: When Climate Action Became Performance Art.’”

She scrutinizes the company’s 302-page sustainability report and highlights several contradictions. While the campaign touts water recycling, she notes, “Britannia’s absolute water withdrawal almost doubled in a year – from 564,843 kL to 1,012,259 kL,” in one of the world’s most water-stressed countries. The use of renewable electricity is also questioned, as “energy consumption from non-renewables jumped… the share of renewables went down by 6%.” CO₂ emissions across all scopes increased significantly, with Scope 3 emissions alone rising from 2.5 million t to 4.25 million t.

On plastic neutrality, Zabrodskaya writes, “Nobody really knows what’s behind the mysterious phrase ‘responsibly processed’,” and adds that “plastic waste generation increased from 3,398 MT to 4,858 MT.” She concludes that Britannia expanded its climate impact while allocating just “0.5% of total capex to environmental/social projects.”

Despite these numbers, the campaign flaunts “149x return on campaign investment” and massive engagement metrics, prompting Zabrodskaya’s final critique: “So much for ‘adapting to nature’s needs.’”

Polina Zabrodskaya’s article got overwhelming support on her takedown of Britannia’s Cannes-winning sustainability campaign, while also expressing broader disillusionment with the advertising industry's performative greenwashing and the awards culture that enables it.

Storyboard18 reached out to both Britannia and Talented for their official statement on the greenwashing allegations. The following is a joint response from Britannia and Talented.

"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."

"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."