London, UK - Monday 13th December 2021: The Times and The Sunday Times has today announced the five winners of its The Times Earth Ad Fund - a £1million advertising fund for sustainability SMEs and charities.

Entrants were asked to detail a sustainable initiative, invention, product or service that would help Times readers lead more sustainable lives. The winning applicants are:

• Clim8 Invest, a sustainable investing app which allows clients to support environmental innovation and help reach climate goals
• UFODRIVE, the world’s first all-electric, all-digital car rental company
• Homethings, a company that creates refillable cleaning products
• SURI, the world’s first truly sustainable electric toothbrush
• Creating Tomorrow’s Forests, an initiative that plants trees to create diverse woodland habitats in the UK.

Each winning business has earned £200k of prime Times, Sunday Times and Times Radio advertising inventory to promote their products and services to the influential Times audience with the titles also offering help and advice on messaging, marketing and branding.

News UK’s latest research on sustainability revealed that over the last 12 months alone, 50% of The Times readers have become more engaged in sustainability and climate change topics, with only 29% of readers claiming they feel well informed on the subject. Further, 83% of readers believe that we are headed for environmental disaster unless we begin to change our habits; as a result, 72% of Times readers recycle all possible household items, whilst 56% have reduced their car travel.

Dominic Carter, Group Chief Commercial Officer, News UK said: "We had a huge number of entries to The Times Earth ad fund, it's really impressive to see the enterprise and initiative that is happening around sustainability. We are proud to be supporting the winners at the start of their journeys and look forward to seeing what we can help them achieve."

Ben Spencer, Science Editor, The Sunday Times added: “More and more readers of The Times and The Sunday Times want to know what they can do to live sustainably. The Times Earth digital hub is uniquely placed to inform our readers about climate change and our environment, and will be the perfect platform for these sustainable businesses to spread the message about their innovative products and services."

UFODRIVE co-founders Aidan McClean and Renaud Marquet said “We are delighted and honoured that UFODRIVE has been selected to be a winner of The Times Earth Ad Fund prize. Our mission is to deliver an “out of this world” electric car rental experience while encouraging a faster transition to clean, zero-emissions mobility. This valuable prize will massively help our ability to empower more people to enjoy the benefits of electric vehicles in 2022.”

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For more information please contact:

Libby Darcy, Senior Account Executive, Bluestripe Group: libby.darcy@bluestriepgroup.co.uk / newsuk@bluestripegroup.co.uk

About The Times and The Sunday Times

The Times, founded in 1785, is Britain’s most trusted newspaper and the home of authoritative, credible, and award-winning journalism. The Sunday Times, founded in 1822, celebrated its 10,000th edition in May 2016 and has won a clutch of awards for its Insight team investigations unit, its foreign reporting and its magazine features and interviews, in particular.

The Times and The Sunday Times have over 550k subscribers, of which more than 335,000 are digital.

Learn more about the Times Earth Ad Fund here.