Food waste is one of the lesser-known evils in the climate change debate. Responsible for 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet most people remain totally unaware of the secret threat lurking in their kitchens. With Australian households wasting over 2.5 million tonnes of food a year, this is a problem leading food rescue organisation, OzHarvest, approached global innovation company, R/GA to help fix.
Seamus Higgins, VP CCO R/GA APAC said in the face of the current climate crisis, the need for simple, human–centred design solutions has never been more urgent. “We knew that to help OzHarvest solve the complex problem of household food waste, we had to focus on driving lasting behaviour change by making it genuinely easier and more accessible for people to waste less food at home. Innovation runs far deeper than the latest tech and at R/GA we define it as the introduction of the relevant new, and often the strongest solutions are the simplest.”
R/GA’s strategy and creative teams collaborated closely with OzHarvest, using unique consumer insights from Australian-first research conducted together with BehaviourWorks Australia to create Use It Up™ – a new campaign featuring product innovation to make it easy to waste less at home. The Use It Up Tape is a simple and fun tool to highlight the food that needs using up first, acting as a highly visible daily reminder.
“Our hope is that the Use It Up Tape becomes a badge of honour, similar to reusable coffee cups and shopping bags, that people use in their kitchens to show others that they’re part of the much-needed solution to the climate crisis,” Seamus added.
OzHarvest Founder and CEO, Ronni Kahn AO said urgent action is needed to achieve the national goal of halving food waste by 2030. “We cannot watch what’s happening to our planet and wait for others to fix this. People are blown away when they learn that reducing food waste is the most powerful way they can take climate action and they can start today in their kitchen!”
“Tackling household food waste is a complex problem that needs an innovative solution to inspire citizen action. Armed with new research, we approached R/GA with the brief to come up with something different to create long-term behavioural change. We were thrilled when they presented the idea for the Use It Up tape. Together, we hope it becomes an everyday product in kitchens across the country to help save food, save money and save the planet.”
Launching today, on the UN’s International Food Loss & Waste Day, the Use It Up campaign is supported by a raft of influencers on social media using the tape and showing how they use it up! The tape is available from the OzHarvest website alongside recipes and tips to use up commonly wasted ingredients.
Find out more at ozharvest.org/useitup.
About R/GA
R/GA is an atypical innovation and design company. We help brands and businesses define, connect with, and create more human futures. Our work spans innovation consulting, org design, brand design, experience design, and marketing communications.
R/GA is part of The Interpublic Group of Companies (NYSE: IPG), one of the world’s largest advertising and marketing services organizations, and has more than 1600 employees globally, with 16 offices across the United States, Europe, South America, and Asia-Pacific. For more information about R/GA, please visit rga.com or follow @rga on Twitter.
