Sustainable Sport
Sport contributes a significant part to the social fabric of most nations in the world. The UN Sports and Environment program makes it clear that when a person engages in sport there is an obvious impact on the environment. Perhaps that is an obvious statement, particularly when you mix the catering, accommodation, sanitation, transport and merchandising needs of the athletes, spectators, officials, media and sponsors, with the manufacturing and maintenance of the sporting equipment, facilities and infrastructure, with the ecosystems, waste, pollution, water, energy and other resources that they all impact. But the real question is how can we make sport more sustainable?
Greensense partnered with Surfing WA and the Drug Aware Pro earlier this year to help undertake a carbon audit for WA’s premier sporting event. Subsequently we are working with the Department of Sport and Recreation in WA to discuss more broadly, with leading sporting bodies, how the industry can reduce it’s impact on the environment — so thought it was a timely opportunity to write about it. I think this blog we’ll just focus on some of the great initiatives that have been put in place around the world — wet your appetite and hopefully spark some ideas for your sport and then follow that up later with some of our ideas on what you can do.
The Beijing Olympics had a theme of “The Green Olympics”. They made a number of pre-Olympic commitments around air quality, emissions from vehicles and cleaner energy. On the whole this was well achieved but a common comment is this could have been improved with more transparency on the reporting and data verification of the outcome — just showing how stakeholder engagement is critical. The London Olympics are following this up with their “towards one planet” theme and have implemented an extensive sustainability policy focused on climate change, waste, inclusion and biodiversity. The London Olympics has also committed to running this process following the British Standard 8901 — one of only a few standards for sustainable event management.
The 2008 US Tennis Open implemented a range of “green initiatives” and engaged well with their suppliers to do this.Evian provided recycling on site for 500,000 plastic bottles and 20,000 aluminum cans. Constellation Energy provided renewable energy. Lexus provided 20% of the players vehicles as hybrids. Wilson recycled 20,000 ball cans and 60,000 balls and IBM reduced the number of servers it used to keep score from 60 to 9.
The 2006 FIFA World Cup implemented it’s “Green Gold” initiative. They had 4 environmental targets for water, refuse, energy and mobility. As a result emissions from energy dropped from an estimated 7500 tonnes to 2500 tonnes and trasnport emissions from 90,000 tonnes to 73,000 tonnes.
The 2010 Vancouver Olympics has a number of initiatives underway but some that we like revolve around the venue management. They have reduced their site footprint by 30% from the original design, ensured that wood waste from construction has been re-used for compost, implemented an onsite waste water treatment plant and obtained LEED Silver green building certification for all new buildings.
The last example is a favourite — mostly because of the collaborative nature between the events. The FIVB Swatch Beach Volleyball Championships and the Allianz Swiss ATP Tennis event have different organisers for each event but collaborate on sharing the same temporary location. Once the tennis is finished the courts are filled with sand for the volleyball so the spectator seating and infrastructure can be re-used among other things. They also used renewable energy from 1to1 Energy which just happens to come from solar panels installed on the local football stadium — cool!
If you are involved in running a sporting event and this has sparked some ideas for you — we would love to have a chat to look at how you can make your event more sustainable.
