About

Awards

Clean Games was awarded as the national winner from Russia in the Energy Globe Award in 2021, and became the international finalist in the category Youth.

The awards were held within the COP26, the UN Climate Change Conference.

The project has the award for the 'Input in Environmental Protection' from the Volunteer of the Year international award (Kazakhstan, 2020).

It was awarded with more than 10 national prizes in Russia from 2017 to 2021. These prizes congratulate its input in environmental protection, volunteering, social entrepreneurship and communications. The project was awarded as the Best Volunteer Project in Russia in 2017-2018, the Best social project in Russia in 2019-2020.

History

In 2014 Dmitry Ioffe and his friends went on a boat trip on lake Vuoksa. Their rest was almost spoilt by waste on one of the islands, and the team came up with the idea of a competition in collecting garbage. Two months later, in July, the first game was held with the support of a location-based game called Running City and its creator Igor Golyshev.

Regional Development

New gamified format attracted activists from Torzhok, Krasnodar and Tver in only two-months time. The project was scaled as a non-commercial franchise, strong community of regional organizers appeared. The methodology is free for all activists after the agreement is signed.

Each year the number of new cities doubled. Fast development turned possible thanks to the unique format, commited team and state recognition and support, as well as the 2017 Russia`s Year of Ecology, when Dmtry Ioffe became the Volunteer of Russia.

2018-2019: International Development

In 2018 Russia`s Year of Volunteering a friend of the project, who lives in India, organized a game for her students - unexpectedly the project became international. Then Clean Games were hold in 15 countries on two continents. In 2019 the first national and international tournaments and The Clean Games Baltic Cup took place to become annual. In 2018 the project was awarded as The Best Eco volunteer Project of the Year and The Best Environmental Project of the Year.

In 2019 Clean Games were presented at II Paris Peace Forum, became Climate Development Leader, The best ecological social entrepreneurship project.

In 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Clean Games had to develop new formats. The action of single cleanups "Trash Fighters Award" became the most media-covered one in the history of the Clean Games. And ordinary games were held in a decentralized secure format.

The first Intercontinental Cup united 20 cities of Russia and the USA.
We have become members of the Coalition Clean Baltic. In partnership with them, we held the second and third Clean Games Baltic Cups, increasing the number of participants outside the Union State of Russia-Belarus by 3 times.

In 2021, we became international finalists and national winners in the most significant global sustainability award, the Energy Globe Award! The award ceremony took place in Glasgow as part of the 26th UN Conference on Climate Change (COP26).

The First Game

2022: We have reached the pre-Covid level and even exceeded it!

The Clean Games practice has spread to 3 new countries - now the Clean Games are held in 28 countries, and along with this, we have overcome the milestone of 100,000 participants and 3,000 tons of garbage collected in the history of the Clean Games!
This year, we held our first competition for eco-activists from all over Russia - "Sustainable Cleanliness".

We held the second Arctic Cup of Purity, which has become traditional - all 9 regions of the Russian Arctic joined it.