Cards of Hope wins Gold at The Smarties MENA 2025

Cards of Hope, for Mashreq, won Gold in Customer (CX) / User Experience (UX) & Design at The Smarties MENA 2025.

The story

Mashreq was moving its debit and credit cards from 100% virgin plastic to 100% recycled plastic, and asked for a complete redesign with an environmental theme.

A recycled card is a sound operational change, but for a customer it can feel abstract. At roughly 5 grams of plastic per card, "eco-friendly plastic" alone is rarely enough to change behaviour or build pride. So we reframed the brief from "redesign the card" to "make the card matter": every card became a way into protecting the UAE's biodiversity, built with Emirates Nature-WWF and the Notice Nature platform.

We identified over 20 endangered plants and animals and illustrated them across the card portfolio by tier. We added a WebAR layer, with no app download, that shows a 3D model of each species with an information overlay and a direct link to Notice Nature. The cards arrive in a 100% FSC-certified welcome pack. The case study reports 11M+ customers reached and 11K+ cardholders signed up for Notice Nature.

Why it matters

Brands that issue a physical product face the same question as Mashreq: a sustainability switch only registers with customers if they can see it and take part in it. Here the card carried the cause, so the change in material came with something a cardholder could do.