Making a ‘Green Goal’: global sports events going green

This week, participants at the UNEP’s Global Forum for Sport and Environment (G-ForSE) in Nairobi reviewed the impact of environmental projects from the likes of the 2010 FIFA World Cup and the 2010 Youth Olympic Games in Singapore and discussed the sustainability measures planned for future sports events. First held in 2001, the Global Forum for Sport and Environment is a bi-annual forum organized by UNEP in partnership with the Global Sports Alliance.

The forum’s objectives are two-fold: to use the popularity of sports to promote environmental awareness and to encourage green activities through sport that bring real benefits to communities and to the environment.

For 16 years, UNEP has been advising host countries and organizing committees on how to integrate environmental considerations into the staging of major sports events – carrying out environmental impact assessments both before and after the games. This recent forum provided a unique platform to share expertise and experiences that can help step up greening efforts for upcoming events like the 2012 Olympic Games in London, the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia, the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil and the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

The backdrop for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia, includes diverse habitats such as the Black Sea, the Caucasus Mountains and Alpine meadows. Organizers of the Games are already working on ways to minimize and to offset the event’s impact on the local environment by focusing on four key areas: protection of nature, climate neutrality, waste management and environmental communications.

History of action

As part of the ‘Green Goal’ initiative for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, UNEP partnered with organizers to help deliver sustainable public lighting projects across six host cities.

A collaboration with sportswear brand PUMA© also resulted in eleven national teams offsetting their World Cup emissions, while the ‘Green Passport’ – distributed to 100,000 football fans – encouraged World Cup visitors to make sustainable travel choices while in South Africa.

Green Passports – which are packed full of local, eco-friendly tips and advice for travelers – have also been introduced in Brazil and Ecuador and new campaigns are about to begin in Costa Rica and Israel.

‘Play for Life’ and raise awareness

The final event at G-ForSE saw three African-based conservation projects that work with elephants, gorillas and lions share a prize of $800,000 as part of the UNEP- Puma® Play for Life project; a global initiative dedicated to raising awareness about conservation among sports fans during the UN’s International Year of Biodiversity in 2010.

The funds were raised primarily through the sales of replica “Unity Kits”, specially designed for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa and worn by international stars such as Samuel Eto’o of Cameroon and Emmanuel Eboué of Ivory Coast. The three projects in Nigeria, Zambia, Ivory Coast and Liberia were the winners of a Play for Life online poll held during the World Cup, where football fans were asked to select their favourite conservation project.

The winning trio includes UNEP’s Great Apes Survival Project (GRASP), which works to save gorilla, chimpanzee, bonobo and orangutan populations from extinction in Africa and South East Asia. GRASP will use the donation to employ and train forest guards and help develop alternative livelihoods for forest communities in equatorial Africa.

“The African Lion: King without a Kingdom” project will channel the prize money into a survey of Zambia’s lion population and the development of a national management plan for the conservation of the species.

Finally, the “Support for the Elephants” Project will use the Play for Life award to help create biodiversity corridors supporting endangered elephants in the forests of Ivory Coast and Liberia.