Ülker celebrates community-led sustainability initiative

Istanbul, Turkey: Ülker, Turkey’s most popular snacking company, part of the pladis group has gained industry wide recognition for its community led sustainability initiative: ‘Nature is in Our Hands’. The campaign is one of a few initiatives that brings online and offline worlds together.

In December 2020, Ülker launched its sustainability campaign aimed at raising awareness among consumers in Turkey of the daily personal steps that can be taken to help protect the planet.

As a people-first Instagram campaign, consumers can access a series of informative and educational videos presented by Şahika Ercümen, world diving record holder; along with environment specialists and Ülker employees. Each episode has a unique theme and explains the more sustainable steps people can take every day, from reducing food waste to minimising their carbon footprint.

The digital campaign also helped to drive greater action in real-life. On 23 April, Turkey’s National Sovereignty and Children’s Day using augmented reality, Instagram followers could plant a ‘digital tree’ wherever they were located. For each digital tree planted, Ülker planted a real tree in Ülker, My Beautiful Country Forest. Similarly, on May 19 for Turkey’s Youth and Sports Day, people were encouraged to comment with a tree emoji. As a result, 20,000 real sapling trees were planted in Karaman.

This builds on previous work by Ülker with the TEMA Foundation. In 2020 and 2021, Ülker planted saplings in different provinces of Turkey and so far, 90,500 saplings have been planted.

“We are proud of what our Nature is in Our Hands campaign has been able to achieve. Already it has reached millions of people and motivated real action,” said Asli Ozen Turhan, Chief Marketing Officer at Ülker. “However, we know this is just the beginning and we hope we can continue to raise awareness of the personal contributions each of us can make to protect our planet and the role that a business like ours can play.”

This award-winning campaign has won the Instachamp “Interactive Formats” award and has been featured as one of the best sustainability campaigns worldwide by Campaign UK.