The Award-Winning Metaverse Project That’s Saving a Nation

With a population of about 12,000, the nine islands of Tuvalu sit in the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and Australia. But for how much longer?

As a low-lying country, it is under severe threat from climate change and rising sea levels, which could see it become uninhabitable over the next century.

To preserve the sovereignty of the nation, it turned to digital innovation and worked with Accenture Song. The resulting metaverse solution, “The First Digital Nation,” won the Titanium Grand Prix at Cannes Lions and has now picked up the main Innovation prize at the Gerety Awards.

Named after copywriter Frances Gerety, who coined the slogan “A Diamond Is Forever” for De Beers, the 2023 awards are being announced here on Adweek. What makes the Gerety Awards unique is that they are judged by an all-female jury.

Tara Ford, chief creative officer for The Monkeys, which is part of Accenture Song, discussed how the Innovation Grand Prix-winning project came to be. The full list of winners follows this Q&A.

Adweek: Where did the project originate? What was the initial brief? 

Tara Ford: The Government of Tuvalu came to us through mutual partners whom we worked with on other sustainability-related projects. Prior to this, Accenture had already worked with several Pacific islands, the Australian Institute of Marine Science, and Amazon Web Services on a recent conservation and climate change project. 

It was really humbling to hear first-hand from Minister Simon Kofe and his team about the challenges Tuvalu and its people are facing in the next five, 10 and 50 years.  

He talked about how in a matter of decades, the low-lying Pacific nation will disappear due to rising sea levels. As an island nation with a maximum height of 4 meters (13 feet), they are in an extremely vulnerable position when it comes to the effects of climate change and sea level rises. No country has ever had to deal with this before. The loss of a nation due to climate change is an entirely new problem.

Tuvalu needed help with a plan to save the sovereignty of their nation, giving the government an ongoing framework and central entity from which Tuvalu can continue to communicate and serve their people—even if they are displaced.

They also needed to use that plan to capture the attention of governments and people across the globe, communicating the urgent need for climate action. Minister Kofe’s scheduled address at COP27 [the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference] provided the perfect opportunity to serve Tuvalu’s dual aims of being recognized as a digital nation, while also giving a crucial wake-up call to the world.

Just the other day, Minister Kofe framed their perspective on the [campaign] to us as akin to a terminal cancer diagnosis, in that having limited time “forces you to think about what’s important.” 

It’s incredibly sad, but that’s very much the position they are in. Making the most of the time they have left to make the onset of loss as manageable as possible.

Who worked on the project and for how long?

Our working group on this is not what you would call a typical campaign team: Tuvaluan ministers for trade, foreign affairs and justice worked alongside Accenture Song, our Sustainability Studio and our Metaverse Continuum business group. This team worked alongside our production partner Collider to faithfully recreate the island of Te Afualiku—the first island in Tuvalu [expected] to be submerged by rising sea levels.

For launch, we teamed up with Thrive PR to communicate the message to media outlets. We began our relationship with the Tuvaluan government in early 2022.

What prompted the use of the metaverse as a potential solution? 

The promise the metaverse offers is a degree of security and permanence in the way we used to ascribe those values to physical land, which is tragic in and of itself. And when we talk about the metaverse as an alternative to a physical home, it’s shocking for anyone to contemplate.

Despite the excitement surrounding the metaverse in recent years, Tuvalu recognizes that the realization of a fully interconnected metaverse will require significant progress in hardware, software and networking infrastructure. Out of necessity, both are being developed in tandem.

Embarking on The First Digital Nation is something Tuvalu must start as they have exhausted other alternatives. It does provide immediate value for Tuvalu. It’s a pragmatic step to help Tuvalu argue for sovereignty and nationhood and its permanence as a nation. Digitizing provides real support and connection for displaced citizens and also in the event of natural disasters.

What challenges did you encounter in making this project a reality?

There were many challenges bringing this work to life. Saving the sovereignty of a nation is a complex thing to navigate. There are many moving parts, and we spent a lot of time considering the best approach to finding a simple and emotive way to communicate that to the global audience at COP27.  

There were many practical production challenges. Tuvalu wasn’t accepting visitors back when the project began (due to Covid), so the entire production was done remotely. Two teams, over 4,000 km apart, worked in parallel.

In Sydney, we painstakingly built the first piece of the digital nation—a replica of Te Afualiku islet based on photography and drone footage captured by the team on Tuvalu, who had to sail with their equipment to the location.

For the COP27 film, the production was directed remotely through WhatsApp due to patchy Wi-Fi. And with a limited window of time where the lighting was right, the team in Tuvalu captured the minister’s three-minute address in a single take.

What would you say the campaign achieves?

This work is primarily about saving the sovereignty of a nation. It is part of a continuing project to catalog, map, record and save as much of Tuvaluan island life as possible—including historical documents, records of cultural practices, family albums and traditional song. A place where the Tuvaluan government can hold elections and house essential government services. A place to record ongoing history and culture. More than anything, ‘The First Digital Nation’ will serve as a place where 12,000 displaced Tuvaluans can stay connected as a country.

How have you reacted to the industry’s response? What about the campaign objectives? 

The most important outcome is having Tuvalu’s sovereignty recognized by other nations. Since ‘The First Digital Nation’ was announced, 10 nations have agreed to legally recognize the permanency of Tuvalu’s sovereignty regardless of what happens to its physical land, redefining what it means to be a country. This is crucial to the future of Tuvalu and its people.

And days after the announcement made by Minister Kofe at the U.N. climate change conference, a fund for historic loss and damage was established.

Minister Kofe has talked repeatedly about the need to reach citizens of the world, forcing them to think, ‘What if this were happening to my country?’ It is often the citizens putting pressure on their own governments that forces the most action. 

To have the work reach such a broad audience—2.1 billion people—was key to amplifying Tuvalu’s voice and centering Pacific perspectives in global climate conversations.

Having the opportunity to play a part in such important and meaningful work is very gratifying for everyone involved. It is very much a co-creation and we will be led by the Tuvaluan government and their people for the next stage of work.

Other winners in the Innovation category:

Follow Their Leader — The Non-Violence Project Foundation

The Greatest Guide to Jochos and Burgers — Bimbo

FitChix — Honest Eggs Co.

What the judges said:

“This year’s Grand Prix, ‘The First Digital Nation’ by the government of Tuvalu, is meaningfully different in so many ways. A self-sufficient society that is not just revealing to the world, but achieving after years of trying an important milestone for nations facing the worst of climate crisis, which is losing a future. An idea that transcends reality and sets a new standard for how creativity made with purpose has the superpower to achieve global collaboration and make a better world.” —Marcela Morales, senior brand and digital manager, KitchenAid and Whirlpool

About the other Innovation winners:

“We hear a lot about how progressive technologies are taking something from humans. What I saw this year in the innovation entries, in the Grand Prix and Gold winners, is how they humanized the technology, using it creatively in ways that matter and that bring real solutions to cultural problems. We should be hearing more about this to inspire purpose into technology and innovation at any level.”