To show the shocking health impacts dirty diesel has on the African population, we created a multichannel campaign. With the help of activists in Accra, Ghana, we shot a short film showing local people capturing the polluted air into canisters and return it to the sender. In other words: As a reaction to the dirty business of Trafigura, we sent the air in a shipping container back to the commodities giant.

The campaign was implemented in three phases.

In phase one, the audience was shown a teaser film with local people capturing the polluted air into canisters and return it to the sender. A lot of major media platforms around the world reported about the story of the dirty diesel.

In phase 2, the journey of the dirty air to Switzerland started and was a public event. Users could follow the cargo ship in real time on the website returntosender.ch, including precise geolocation of the container ship, weather data and progression. The website also contained extensive information about the report. It led to a petition demanding Trafigura to stop their dirty business and focus on their goal of becoming market leader in social responsibility.

The hook of Phase 3 was the delivery of the dirty air to the sender: to Trafigura in Geneva.

Business impact:

Public Eye has a member and donor community of 25´000 people. We gained 5270 e-mail addresses and 1000 new members, 1250 downloaded the report. The Facebook community increased by more than 20%.

Response rate:

The petition was signed by almost 20´000 people.

Change of behavior:

Public pressure caused by our campaign moved the government of Ghana to toughen its national sulfur standard by a factor of 60. The National Petroleum Authority Ghanas called our campaign the catalyst for these actions. Benin, Togo, Ivory Coast and Nigeria followed and toughened its sulfur standards. The Dutch and the Nigerian governments recognized the problem of the export of dirty diesel, they want to take actions. The city council of Amsterdam wants to ban the export.