29/10/2007
NEWS STORY
Having finished eighth in the 2007 Constructors Championship, with Jenson Button finishing fourteenth in the Drivers' Championship - his worst season since 2001 - and Rubens Barrichello failing to score a single point for the first time since he entered F1 in 1993, it's worth publishing this announcement from the Honda F1 Team in its entirety:
The Honda Racing F1 Team won two prestigious awards at the 2007 Green Awards which were held at the London Guildhall on Friday 26 October.
The team's environmental myearthdreamTM initiative won its nominated category of Best PR Campaign with a budget of over £100k, against very strong competition from Marks & Spencer and Procter & Gamble.
The Honda campaign then went on to compete for the Grand Prix award for the best overall campaign, along with the 18 other winners on the night, including British Sky Broadcasting, DEFRA, Transport for London, the Guardian, Marks & Spencer and the Carbon Trust. The Grand Prix award was presented to the Honda Racing F1 Team as the campaign which best exemplified an outstanding environmental message and had the greatest capacity to raise awareness amongst the general public.
Chairman of the 2007 Green Awards judging panel, Mr Eric Falt, Director of Communications for the United Nations Environment Programme, said that the Honda campaign "was the most creative all-round, with a multiplicity of messages. It was an imaginative response which really got people thinking and had many re-appraise their relationship with Formula One."
Nick Fry, Chief Executive Officer at the Honda Racing F1 Team, commented; "It is a fantastic achievement for the Honda Racing F1 Team to receive such recognition at the 2007 Green Awards. We are delighted to be in the company of so many outstanding organisations dedicated to protecting the environment through the highest calibre marketing campaigns. The aim of our myearthdreamTM initiative was to use the global reach of Formula One to raise awareness and create debate of environmental issues around the world and we have been very successful in accomplishing that goal in our first year. The myearthdreamTM campaign has received support from many thousands of people and our environmental statement seen by millions more as the Honda Formula One cars have raced with the distinctive earth livery this season. Honda is an innovative company with a strong environmental heritage and this is a great acknowledgement of the hard work, commitment and belief that has gone into the myearthdreamTM campaign this year."