Planet or Plastic?
Transforming Environmental Awareness Into Award-Winning Global Action
As single-use plastic pollution surged to crisis levels, National Geographic sought to drive awareness and action around this environmental crisis. Following their iconic print issue examining plastic's environmental impact, NatGeo approached Artemis Ward to create a digital pledge platform extending their editorial storytelling into interactive consumer engagement. The challenge: move beyond raising awareness to inspire measurable behavior change at global scale through National Geographic's unique combination of science, exploration, and storytelling in a digital-first format.
Partnering with NatGeo's digital and editorial leadership, we transformed Planet or Plastic? from a powerful editorial feature into an interactive global movement. Leading design strategy, creative concept development, and end-to-end UX/UI design, I created a digital-first pledge experience where users could commit to reducing single-use plastics, track their impact, and contribute to a real-time global tally that turned individual actions into collective movement.
I combined National Geographic's iconic visual storytelling with an immersive scrolling experience that simulated being submerged underwater. As users scrolled, they discovered Planet or Plastic?'s signature visual twist—the perceived iceberg was actually a plastic shopping bag, one of the many single-use plastic items polluting our oceans daily. Customizable impact calculators within the pledge drove user engagement, and completed pledges generated branded content to be shared across channels and feeds, amplifying their commitment. The pledge platform ultimately drove commitments to eliminate over 900 million single-use plastic items from consumption, setting a new benchmark for how brands can mobilize global audiences into lasting action.
