Norwegian Championship in Recycling — When Competition Becomes Learning
2026 Finalist
Media associated with this campaign
Overview of this campaign
Sustainability fatigue meets everyday uncertainty.
Waste sorting is one of the most important sustainability actions people take in their daily lives, and at the same time, it is often misunderstood. For Grønt Punkt Norge, the challenge was not a lack of willingness, but a lack of confidence.
Many people are unsure where different types of packaging should actually be sorted. When in doubt, many choose residual waste, or sort incorrectly.
The challenge is that people are tired of moralising messages and complex rules, while we still need more people to sort their waste correctly.
Grønt Punkt Norge is not focused on building its own brand, making this a pure attitude and awareness campaign. The objective was to strengthen understanding and trust in recycling, and to activate the target audience towards engagement and better choices over time.
What we did
Instead of telling people what they should do, we chose to invite them in:
to test what they actually know,
to recognise their own uncertainty,
to learn through explanation, not instruction.
We created a national recycling championship, where counties competed against each other on knowledge. This tapped into people’s competitive instincts and drove engagement across the country.
We did this through a playful quiz where users could test their knowledge and then receive the correct answers and learn something new. Halfway through the campaign, we reviewed the interim results and used them to sharpen the headlines and front page entries, triggering even more engagement.
In addition, we produced a magazine-style solution with a total of eight articles covering each packaging type that Grønt Punkt Norge is responsible for, an expert article debunking common myths, and a full explanation of the quiz answers.
The entire campaign was built around a clear «what’s in it for me» perspective, and a «why bother» approach- aiming to inspire rather than moralise.
Results for this campaign
This was the first time we used a quiz as the main driver of a campaign. Still, we set ourselves an ambitious internal goal of reaching 3,000 quiz participants. The campaign exceeded expectations from the very start and throughout the full eight-week campaign period.
A total of 69,403 users started the quiz, and 35,102 completed it in full. Achieving a 50.6% completion rate is extraordinary. Maintaining such high engagement across nearly 70,000 users proves that leveraging regional rivalry was a strategic success in gamifying sustainability.
Engagement increased significantly after we introduced locally adapted front page entries, where counties were positioned against each other based on interim quiz results. Following this adjustment, quiz participation increased by 384%.
Readers spent a substantial amount of time with the content, with active reading time measured at up to 72 seconds (benchmark 30–40 seconds), remaining high throughout the entire campaign period.
RAM results show that the campaign performed above benchmark across key parameters, including overall evaluation, usefulness, interest, originality, intention to seek more information, website visits and recommendation.
With a total index score of 120 and a particularly strong action index of 129, the results indicate that the content lowered the threshold for further engagement and action. Relevance and decoding analysis show that the message was largely perceived as personally relevant.
The emotional profile, dominated by inspiration, calmness and interest, suggests that the campaign was rarely experienced as moralising and helped build confidence in personal choices.
Conclusion
Shift in mindset and behaviour does not happen overnight. Recycling is a complex system where change takes place over time and across generations. The effect of a single campaign can therefore not be measured directly in tons recycled.
Instead, we measured impact where communication has the greatest influence: understanding, confidence, engagement and intention.
When sustainability becomes understandable and relevant, people invest both time and attention. By shifting the focus from guilt to understanding, Norwegian Championship in Recycling helped make sustainability achievable in practice.
