Get ready to meet the winner of the Green Product Award 2022! 

Thanks to our “Little Garden 2” campaign together with the South African grocery retailer Checkers, UNGA scored an amazing win in the Kids category at the Green Product Award 2022. This amazing award reflects our efforts to innovate and contribute to a more sustainable world, reinforcing our motto Play, Grow and Sustain. 

Back in 2020, UNGA and Checkers gave life to the “Little Garden 2” seedling campaign. During the campaign period, Checkers rewarded shoppers with up to 24 season-appropriate and bee-friendly seedlings kits, produced locally in South Africa. Together, we managed to get families into a new green hobby, allowing them to have fun while taking care of the planet. 

Little Garden: a green product & concept

Little Garden was designed to be bee-attracting and encouraged kids and families to treat their buzzing friends with nectar and pollen. And of course, the playful and educational merchandise items were also developed with sustainable materials by our UNGA experts. ?

Each seedling kit included:

• compostable pot (made of paper pulp)
• soil pod (coconut husk)
• seed tape (compostable paper)
• sleeve with a pop-out name tag embedded (75% recycled paper)

Merchandise items: 

• Collector’s tray (made of sugarcane pulp)
• 100% untreated cedar wood “Bee Hotel”

The products have been locally sourced and produced in South Africa, empowering communities by employing 150+ people—mostly women. With this campaign, Checkers not only enabled families to grow a little ­­garden at home but also helped the South African community plant seeds for the future, something which was much appreciated by the local workforce.

Read more about how Checkers Little Garden 2 promoted community empowerment in ZA

An award-winning seedling campaign

Besides being the winner of the Green Product Award 2022 (Kids category), the Checkers Little Garden 2 campaign also won the International Design Awards 2021 (Sustainable Living/Environmental Preservation – Sports, Toys & Games) and 2 Honorable Mentions in the Outdoor & Exercise Equipment and Toy Design – Toy for Children categories. 

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

“Checkers Little Garden 2 is a good example of the level of quality and passion our nominees are contributing to a more sustainable future.”

Nils Bader | Director Green Product Award

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

“Little Garden 2 is a much-loved collectable range that Checkers introduced for the second time to our loyal Xtra Savings members and their kids. It included 24 seasonal herbs, flowers and vegetables that were also bee-friendly, and created opportunities for over 165 South African women with our local production facilities.”

Mike Middleton | Chief Marketing Officer, Shoprite Group

The Green Product Award

Since 2013, the international Green Product Award has been honoring outstanding products, services, and concepts that stand out for their good design, innovation, and sustainability.

The aim of the award is to inspire consumers and industry with good examples and to provide feedback and networking opportunities to the participants of the awards so that more and more sustainable products emerge.

Check out our Green Product Award page here.