Anti-fossil fuel advertising campaign group Clean Creatives will attend Cannes Lions 2026 to recruit pledge signatories, with a program of official programming and street-level activations planned throughout the week.
The organization, which counts more than 1,600 agencies and 4,600 creatives among its fossil-free pledge signatories, will use the festival as a recruitment drive along the Croisette.
Executive Director Laura Ranzato will speak on a panel for the Silence to GreenSHOUTING: A Creative Lab for What Comes Next event. A team of creatives assembled for the festival will run several additional engagements.
These include the Fossil Free Grand Prix, an open-call walk along a set route on the Croisette aimed at signing up as many fossil-free pledge signatories as possible. A hackathon titled ‘Unpitch Fossil Fuels: A Creative Challenge for the Planet’ will ask teams to develop campaign ideas pressing Cannes Lions to stop awarding sustainability prizes to agencies with fossil fuel clients; the format follows a pilot held in New York City in 2025.
A third activation, Burning Questions, will feature industry Senior Creative Josh Klasco conducting man-on-the-street interviews exploring the fossil fuel industry’s presence in the communications sector.
The Cannes Lions appearance marks a return for the group following an absence last year, when it ran a campaign sending canisters of Cannes beach sand to agency offices in New York, London, and Chicago. According to the release, the campaign was designed to spark conversations, recognize staff discontent amid return-to-work policies and layoffs, and pressure agency workers to push their companies to reject fossil fuel contracts.
“We’re energised and excited to be returning to Cannes Lions at a time when fossil fuel supply chain instability dominates global news and impacts every sector across the board,” said Laura Ranzato, Executive Director, Clean Creatives.
“Our current pledge numbers show thousands in the communications sector care deeply about the impacts of their work – we’re looking to platform this further and ask attendees to draw a line in the sand on relationships with the most polluting industry on earth.”
“We’ve brought together a team of world-class creatives who believe the industry can, and must, go fossil-free, and we’re taking that case to Cannes,” said Mikayla Madigan, Cannes Creative Director, Clean Creatives.
“Our programme is designed to be fun and engaging, while making it as easy as possible for attendees to sign the Clean Creatives pledge and become part of the change the industry so desperately needs.”
