Sanrio has been awarded this year’s Special Mention – Best Sustainable Licensing Project at the Bologna Licensing Awards for its Mr Men Little Miss partnership with the circular home products company, Ecover.
On its mission to ‘lead a clean world revolution’ through increased circularity within the home cleaning products sector, Ecover engaged with the popular children’s brand to better communicate to families the importance of reuse and refill and choosing to use less plastic.
The result was the creation of Little Miss Waste Less, a newly developed Mr Men Little Miss character who now stars in her own book encouraging children to ‘do one less thing’ when it comes to plastic waste. Through her story, Little Miss Waste Less embodies reuse and repair, inspiring readers to embrace circular economic thinking and seek an alternative to throwing items away.
“The youth of today are really leading the charge when it comes to looking after our planet,” said the Mr Men Little Miss team at Sanrio. “If we can try to communicate these complex ecological messages in our signature Hargreaves style to pre-schoolers, we can help shape a greener future for us all.
“There was a lot we learned from our meetings with Ecover. With over 40 years’ experience in the sustainability space they have been leading (and educating) the industry and consumers on how to behave more consciously.”
The Sanrio team states that Little Miss Waste-Less’ core message to encourage everyone to ‘do one less thing’ when it comes to plastic use is one for the licensing industry to take on board, too.
“By more companies making changes, not only will it have a positive impact but we can share best practices and learn from each other. We must all contribute to create impact at scale,” said the team.
Elsewhere at this year’s Bologna Licensing Awards – the awards arm of the Bologna Licensing Trade Fair, itself an off-shoot of the Bologna Children’s Book Fair – and it was Products of Change member The Smurfs that took the Best Licensing Project accolade.
Recognising the brand’s advocacy of the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Goals, judges awarded The Smurfs’ partnership with the international toy maker Schleich and its 2022 McDonald’s Happy Meal campaign.
