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OC Sport – the global sports management company specialised in the creation and delivery of outdoor sports events - has launched its new sustainability strategy, Rethink Sport. The strategy has a central goal of achieving company-wide carbon neutrality by 2028 and sets out to deliver exemplary leadership across all of the company’s operations by using the power of OC Sport events to maximise purpose.
OC Sport will embed sustainability principles and practices within all of its operations and each of the organisation’s events to deliver against carbon-neutral targets.
As part of the roadmap, OC Sport’s mass participation events, which include the Harmony Geneva Marathon for Unicef, La Tour Genève Triathlon, Run Mate and the Geneva 20km by Genève Aéroport, will achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2025.
OC Sport’s sailing events will be carbon neutral by 2028, including La Solitaire du Figaro, The Transat CIC, Route du Rhum-Destination Guadeloupe and La Transat en Double - Concarneau - Saint-Barthélemy.
OC Sport will also actively seek to reduce its carbon emissions in its offices in France and Switzerland to have a net-zero carbon footprint by 2023, introduce a travel policy and a sustainable sourcing code for the procurement of products and services, and develop comprehensive sustainable operations plans for each of its events.
OC Sport will maximise the reduction of their carbon emissions and invest in projects to offset the remaining emissions that can’t be avoided.
Hervé Favre, OC Sport CEO said: “Our global events across sailing and mass participation outdoor sports offer an excellent opportunity to showcase sport and also to reach a huge audience. As a company we have a responsibility to use this reach to take action and raise awareness on the key issues that we face.
We will continually Rethink how we deliver our events to drive change towards a cleaner future and minimise carbon, and we will use our global platform to raise awareness and maximise purpose, ensuring everyone can continue to enjoy outdoor sport for many years to come. We look forward to sharing our progress and creating partnerships with like-minded companies.”
Geert Hendriks, Director with Blueshift, OC Sport’s sustainability advisors, said: “Outdoor sports can play a crucial role in rebuilding society post-COVID and we are very pleased to see OC Sport taking leadership in contributing to a healthy society. We need to rethink sport to drastically reduce our carbon emissions but also foster the wider social and environmental impact that outdoor sport events have.”
OC Sport has already joined forces with 200+ other global sports organisations as a signatory to the Sports for Climate Action Framework hosted by UN Climate Change. Signatories work together to strive towards climate neutrality within the sports industry for a safer planet and to get on track for a net zero emission economy by 2050.
“To achieve climate goals, everyone needs to do their part and sport is uniquely positioned to set the example by focusing on implementing low carbon solutions across operations and events as soon as possible,” said Lindita Xhaferi-Salihu, UN Sports for Climate Action Lead at the UN Climate Change. “Two years since the launch of the Sports for Climate Action Framework, we have jointly created a strong momentum with a growing number of signatories wanting to align with the 1.5-degree goal.
OC Sport’s commitment to company-wide carbon neutrality by 2028 recognises the urgency to act, and the significant global influence which can be achieved through the company’s portfolio of events.”
The key components of the Rethink Sport strategy include:
Minimise Carbon
· Achieve company-wide carbon neutrality by 2028 with all OC Sport events committing to carbon neutrality targets
· OC Sport mass participation events to be carbon neutral by 2025
· OC Sport sailing events to be carbon neutral by 2028
· OC Sport offices to be carbon neutral by 2023
· Select Carbon Offset programmes
· Introduce sustainable sourcing code for all activities and events
Maximise purpose
· Develop a sustainability sponsorship programme
· Identify and engage partners around the sustainability programme
· Align and embed sustainability goals into partnership agreements including host cities
· Target B-Corp certification by 2023, a certification of social and environmental performance
OC Sport was founded in Cowes in the UK in 1998. The company, which now has offices in France, and Switzerland, is a pioneer in the creation, management and delivery of once-in-a-lifetime experiences in sport across professional sailing, cycling, running, and triathlon. The company utilises the natural world to deliver industry leading events across the globe.
Visit ocsport.com/sustainability for more info.
