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Guidelines and reports

FIS Green Event Manual

International Ski Federation

A "Green Event" is defined as an environmentally sound and sustainable implementation of events. Energy efficiency, waste management, local economy, and social responsibility are among the central issues. Small and large events can contribute significantly contribute to environmental protection. Public and media events play a big role in the education process because they draw the interest of a large number of people to actively participate in environmental protection.

Climate ActionLife on LandPartnerships for the GoalsQuality EducationResponsible Consumption
Guidelines and reports

2018 FIFA World Cup™ Greenhouse gas accounting report

FIFA


The FIFA World Cup™ is an international football competition for the senior men’s national teams of FIFA’s member associations that takes place every four years. Its popularity is truly global, bringing excitement to communities around the world and uniting people from different backgrounds through the common language of football. The next FIFA World Cup will take place in the Russian Federation from 14 June to 15 July 2018.

Staging the tournament entails transporting millions of people to the matches and fan fests, ensuring their health and safety, dealing with waste in the stadiums, recruiting and training thousands of volunteers, providing an event that is accessible for everyone and broadcasting the matches in over 200 countries.
This scale inevitably has an impact on society, the environment and the climate.


As the organisers of this mega-event, FIFA and the Local Organising Committee are committed to protecting and conserving the environment. One important part of understanding the environmental impact is to understand the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused by the preparation and staging of the competition. For this purpose, FIFA and the LOC teamed up with experts to estimate the projected GHG emissions resulting from the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia.


The GHG accounting and reporting procedure used for this report is based on the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, the most widely used international accounting tool for government and business leaders to understand, quantify and manage greenhouse gas emissions.

Climate ActionLife on Land
Guidelines and reports

White Paper – Sponsors and Human Rights in the Sports Context

Mega Sporting Events

A total of 11 White Papers have been produced, clustered into four themes referring to key stakeholder groups. These White Papers aim to present the latest thinking, practice, and debate in relation to key human rights issues involved in the planning, construction, delivery, and legacy of MSEs. Each paper also considers the case for, and potential role of, an independent centre of expertise on MSEs and human rights.

Human rights groups have for some years lobbied sponsors to bring about human rights improvements in the context of mega-sporting events (MSE) – from Beijing and London, through to Sochi and Rio. This is based in part on a belief that their investment in the process puts them in a position to exert significant influence and leverage over host governments, sports governing bodies (SGB), and others involved in the planning and staging of an MSE.

This White Paper explores the state of human rights as it relates to the sponsor-MSE relationship. It considers the history, models and mechanics of MSE sponsorship first, before reviewing the human rights risks traditionally posed by or involving MSE sponsors.


At the local event level, local sponsors may in some instances be vetted by SGB’s locallevel entities (for example, local organising committees, national Olympic committees).
On the other hand, international sponsors are not typically subject to due diligence by local SBG entities, as their partnership deals are agreed at the international level with the SGB directly.


At the international sponsor level, while the process of SGB due diligence on sponsors is not entirely new, it is unclear what due diligence SGBs carry out to ensure their standards are met, how they determine what is deemed to conflict with their values, and whether human rights considerations are taken into account. It would be noteworthy if a SGB undertook explicit human rights due diligence on sponsors beyond the area of products/goods suppliers and license holders. Given global sponsors are not procured through open tenders (instead, typically through bilateral negotiation), greater transparency is needed to ensure that adequate human rights vetting does occur in the future and where appropriate that it is aligned with the due diligence undertaken for local sponsors.


On the flip side, while the majority of global Olympic and FIFA sponsors already have a human rights policy that explicitly commits to respecting human rights, the process of implementing these commitments in the MSE context through systematic human rights due diligence on the SGB is less common.


Sponsors report that their due diligence in an MSE context occurs more often at the local level, when local business units need to understand the associated risks and mitigations of upcoming events. However, the reality is that by this time the event has already been awarded, their due diligence plays no role in influencing the decision of where to host or any aspect of the conditions, including on human rights terms, between sports bodies and the LOC/NOC.


Sponsors maintain they hold the greatest leverage over the activities of the SGB/MSE (the rights holders) at the point of negotiation, before the sponsor relationship has been formalised. Once signed, sponsors indicate they have far less scope to make new demands or raise new expectations. This is largely due to the fact that they are dealing with a monopolistic rights seller, and competing with a range of other potential sponsors. Tied to this, sponsors indicated this leverage does not extend itself to influence over the host city; sponsors’ leverage is primarily with the rights holder alone, which is one step removed from the host entity.


In using their influence and leverage, it is clear that rather than publicly intervene in an alleged human rights issue related to an MSE (but not necessarily related to the sponsor’s products, operations or activities), sponsors prefer to act ‘behind the scenes’.


This typically takes the form of serving as sounding boards for dilemma situations and providing insights and guidance to SGB, LOCs, NOCs, and others involved in MSE delivery. Similarly, rather than developing extensive networks with the government, NGOs, and others locally, sponsors have generally sought to develop the capacity of the NOC or LOC to do this.
Some sponsors believe there is much more that SGBs can and should do ‘upstream’ to ensure that human rights is an integral part of the tendering, sport-listing, and awarding process – so that commitments are made by host governments/cities and LOCs from the start. This creates a business case for sponsors to concentrate their human rights due diligence and leverage efforts during the negotiation phase, and upon the pre-bid, bidding, short-listing and awarding processes. There is a clear hope by sponsors that SGBs will introduce human rights fully into future bidding processes, a clear area where sponsors can already begin to exert their influence. Once introduced, such commitments also create fertile ground for leveraging progress on practical implementation.


In addition, in recent years the nature of sponsorship has been changing: relationships between sponsors and SGB are becoming longer and more bespoke to specific product categories; some of the traditional boundaries between sponsorship, advertising, and broadcasting are breaking down with the on-line marketing sphere becoming increasingly dominant; and as MSEs become more and more global so too will sponsorship portfolios. How these developments may influence the nature of sponsor leverage over the human rights impacts of an MSE must be closely watched and anticipated.
To date, and in the path of the high expectations placed upon them by campaigners and the media, individual sponsors have tended to act alone on human rights in the MSE context. Yet given the apparent low state of sponsor leverage and existing due diligence over human rights issues in the MSE context, sponsors have struggled to protect the reputation of the franchise when faced with social risks over which they have little or no direct control.


This creates a case and opportunity for greater collective action between sponsors in order to build leverage, and also to work with other stakeholders to embed human rights into the DNA of the sponsor relationship. Multi-stakeholder approaches can help develop consensus around a number of pressing questions for sponsors in relation to MSEs and human rights, including: determining the most salient human rights issues within the MSE context, as well as rubric for determining their level of involvement in potential impacts; how to best prioritise their due diligence efforts; and, the appropriate role of an MSE sponsor in providing access to effective remedies, amongst others.
The sponsors that participated in interviews for this white paper all believe that this might be best facilitated through a new, independent, and permanent centre, platform, or mechanism that can establish multi-stakeholder trust and maintain focus over the years of implementation ahead.

This paper focuses mainly on IOC and FIFA sponsor relationships, although it is recognised that sponsorship is also a significant driver for other international events (such as tennis, Formula One, rugby, and cricket, amongst others) and in professional sport at the national level (e.g. baseball, football, basketball or ice hockey in the context of North America).
Four major international sponsors provided input for this paper. In addition, reviews of the limited number of written sources on the sponsor-MSE-human rights relationship have been reviewed and reflected. As such, this paper cannot be considered to be representative of all MSE sponsor views globally.

Guidelines and reports

White Paper – Children’s Rights in the Sports Context

Mega Sporting Events

A total of 11 White Papers have been produced, clustered into four themes referring to key stakeholder groups. These White Papers aim to present the latest thinking, practice, and debate in relation to key human rights issues involved in the planning, construction, delivery, and legacy of MSEs. Each paper also considers the case for, and potential role of, an independent centre of expertise on MSEs and human rights.

This White Paper examines the manifold risks of mega-sporting events (MSEs) to children.
It reviews the impact that MSEs can have on the development and the rights of children in the country or city where an MSE is taking place, as well as the impact on children
affected as athletes, through the supply of goods and services for the event, or through the marketing and advertising of products during the event and its broadcast.
It highlights some encouraging practice which has emerged in relation to MSEs and children, whilst recognising that the process of considering child specific measures
and policies in the frame of MSEs is still in its infancy.
It proposes that, since children are more vulnerable than adults and need specific support to guarantee that their rights are upheld, MSE awarding bodies should adopt
an explicit child rights focus to ensure the right action is taken to address the potential impact that these events can have on children.
Awareness about the specific rights and needs of children and the existence of potential negative impacts is the starting point for action. This requires the capacity of
governing bodies and other stakeholders related to MSEs to be increased. This White Paper gives some insight and suggestions for how this could be achieved, as well as
suggestions for the processes which will need to be in place for future events.
It concludes by reflecting on the role that an independent ‘centre’ could play in making MSEs a place where children’s rights are respected and protected, highlighting potential
roles in relation to knowledge sharing, service provision and monitoring capacities. It proposes that these mechanisms should be easily adaptable to local needs and focused
on generating rapid progress for the child-sensitive organisation of MSEs.

Decent Work and Economic GrowthQuality EducationReduced Inequalities
Guidelines and reports

White Paper – Evaluating Human Rights Risks in the Sports Context

Mega Sporting Events

A total of 11 White Papers have been produced, clustered into four themes referring to key stakeholder groups. These White Papers aim to present the latest thinking, practice, and debate in relation to key human rights issues involved in the planning, construction, delivery, and legacy of MSEs. Each paper also considers the case for, and potential role of, an independent centre of expertise on MSEs and human rights.

The purpose of this White Paper is to analyse data from UN and ILO public sources on human rights and labour standards and assess the extent to which these sources can serve as a basis for preparing “country human rights briefs” on mega-sporting event candidate and host cities/countries. These sources, endorsed by the vast majority of countries, are envisaged as a credible starting point for assessing levels of human rights risks in a country context.
Four countries were selected from the mega-sporting event context in order to gauge whether the research and methodology proposed for this study holds up in practice.
The countries chosen are the four next hosts for the Commonwealth Games (Gold Coast 2018, Australia, and Durban 2022, South Africa) and Commonwealth Youth Games (Nassau 2017, The Bahamas, and Belfast 2021, Northern Ireland). These were chosen because the selection process for these events has already been finalized and because they provide good geographic spread.
We have reviewed a defined list of International Labour Organization (“ILO”) and United Nations Human Rights Council sources (“UN sources”), referred to jointly as “primary sources”.

Decent Work and Economic GrowthPeace and JusticeQuality EducationReduced Inequalities
Guidelines and reports

White Paper – Sports Governing Bodies and Human Rights Due Diligence

Mega Sporting Events

A total of 11 White Papers have been produced, clustered into four themes referring to key stakeholder groups. These White Papers aim to present the latest thinking, practice, and debate in relation to key human rights issues involved in the planning, construction, delivery, and legacy of MSEs. Each paper also considers the case for, and potential role of, an independent centre of expertise on MSEs and human rights.

The sports governing bodies (referred to in this report as awarding bodies) espouse high ideals like harmony among nations, humanity, dignity, solidarity, fair-play, and sustainability. They rightly place great emphasis on sport as a driver for peace and development. Less consideration has been given to date to the responsibility these bodies share with others to both understand and address the negative impacts MSEs can have on people.
The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UN Guiding Principles) affirm the obligations of governments to protect against rights abuses involving nonstate actors, and set out the responsibilities of enterprises to respect human rights.
They offer an invaluable roadmap for many businesses active in the MSE space, and for the awarding bodies themselves, who set the terms and criteria upon which these events are run. The concept of human rights due diligence underpins efforts by enterprises to avoid causing harm to people – the workers, communities, athletes, fans, and spectators upon which MSEs rely. But what does that mean in practice? How should awarding bodies go about identifying, preventing, mitigating, and accounting for how adverse human rights impact are addressed, or where necessary remedied, in an MSE context?

This White Paper explores how the provisions laid out in the UN Guiding Principles relate to awarding bodies - drawing on respected sources like the report “For the Game, For the World” prepared by Prof. John Ruggie. It additionally starts to pinpoint some of the areas that may need to be prioritised in order to demonstrate respect for human rights, including around the integration of human rights considerations into the bidding requirements for MSEs.

This White Paper starts to review initiatives by awarding bodies to meet the responsibility to respect human rights. it presents a snapshot rather than an exhaustive analysis, with the examples offered illustrating the kind of work currently being undertaken within sport or on the horizon. The authors welcome and encourage updates and fresh insights from each of the awarding bodies identified, as well as any other international sports federations not yet captured within this report, in order to benchmark the progress being made within the sports sector to advance respect for human rights within an MSE context.


Sport is at the start of a new journey on human rights issues. Like others in business before them, there is an opportunity for the sports sector to learn from ongoing efforts within the wider business community, as well as to take advantage of expertise and insights offered from civil society, trade unions, governments, intergovernmental bodies and other human rights experts. Collective action approaches may offer one avenue for advancing this work going forward.

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Guidelines and reports

White Paper – Athletes’ Rights and Mega-Sporting Events

Mega Sporting Events

A total of 11 White Papers have been produced, clustered into four themes referring to key stakeholder groups. These White Papers aim to present the latest thinking, practice, and debate in relation to key human rights issues involved in the planning, construction, delivery, and legacy of MSEs. Each paper also considers the case for, and potential role of, an independent centre of expertise on MSEs and human rights.

This paper maps the conduct of MSEs and their impact on athletes by reference to international human rights standards. Necessarily, this paper does so by examining the regulatory control exercised by ISOs, which perform the dual role of governing MSEs as well as governing and regulating the conduct of sport.

This paper then identifies any gap in ensuring that the human rights of athletes are protected, respected and remedied. Finally, this paper suggests how those gaps may be filled and provides recommendations on the role that a Mega-Sporting Events Centre (MSE Centre) might play in addressing them.


Four major gaps are identified:
• There is presently an absence of a binding and standing human rights policy and capacity across professional sport within major ISOs and MSEs that deals with the human rights of athletes.
• A human rights due diligence process is often absent from the governance, regulation and conduct of ISOs and MSEs in relation to the athletes who participate in a MSE, and whose work, careers and livelihoods as athletes are often dependent or greatly affected by that participation.
• Social dialogue and collective bargaining are not widespread, and are commonly and actively discouraged by ISOs even in relation to athletes who are organised into legitimate trade unions and athlete and player associations. Where social dialogue and collective bargaining occurs, however, the outcomes for both the athletes and their sports have been overwhelmingly positive. Where barriers exist to the establishment of social dialogue and collective bargaining, such as in relation to child athletes, there is commonly an absence of structured dialogue with their legitimate representatives.
• Notwithstanding the substantial legal capacity of ISOs to protect, promote and enforce the human rights of athletes through a sports based grievance mechanism, such a mechanism has not been created in connection with MSEs. As a consequence, no recourse to dispute resolution can be had for cases related to human rights.


This leaves athletes with access to judicial remedies (where available) in order to have their human rights upheld, a path prohibited either by sporting regulation or precluded by the time sensitive nature of sport.

Decent Work and Economic GrowthPeace and JusticeReduced Inequalities
Guidelines and reports

White Paper – Procurement and Human Rights in the Sports Context

Mega Sporting Events

A total of 11 White Papers have been produced, clustered into four themes referring to key stakeholder groups. These White Papers aim to present the latest thinking, practice, and debate in relation to key human rights issues involved in the planning, construction, delivery, and legacy of MSEs. Each paper also considers the case for, and potential role of, an independent centre of expertise on MSEs and human rights.

This White Paper examines the human rights roles and responsibilities of host governments, organising committees and delivery partners, with respect to risk mitigation and remedy. Within this broad framework, authors were asked to specifically identify better ways to integrate human rights due diligence into procurement practices for mega-sporting events (MSEs).


This White Paper seeks to address this task by considering:
• The likely range of procurement activities across the MSE life-cycle and diversity of suppliers, including SMEs, as well as assessing the potential for leverage with suppliers and construction companies.
• Emerging good practice and the extent to which lessons have been learnt and/or could be transferable across events and between sporting traditions.
• Existing tools / models for improving human rights good practice and responsible business conduct that can be tailored to MSE delivery needs and different geographies.
• The need for leadership by sports governing bodies (SGB) to ensure leverage with suppliers over the long term.
• The scope for, and potential merits of, approved supplier lists.
• The linkage with and implications of human rights due diligence requirements being built into SGB tendering documents.

The White Paper concludes that human rights due diligence has a role to play in the commissioning and management of suppliers, contractors and other providers essential for the delivery of mega sporting events. It highlights a number of good practice examples, many of which have been shared and replicated by host organisations across MSEs. The adoption of a standard sourcing code (such as ETI’s Base Code, or WFGSI’s Model Code) against which to measure supplier performance is a good example of this. The application and effectiveness of supporting monitoring processes and grievance mechanisms, however, show a mixed picture of performance, especially in terms of satisfying broader stakeholder concerns. And although the embedding of human rights due diligence requirements into formal tendering procedures for events is being advanced, for example by FIFA, it has yet to become a reality.

It identifies six areas where an independent centre / entity could potentially assist organisers and sporting bodies, by:

  1. Capturing, recording and sharing best practices across the sporting organisations and governments that play host to MSEs, or desire to bid for MSEs.
  2. Developing an operational blue print, offering clarity about the respective roles and responsibilities of the organisations involved in the procurement of goods and services for an MSE, and the due diligence processes, remedies and complaint mechanisms needed to protect rights at each stage in the MSE lifecycle.
  3. Analysing and promoting applicable international standards, or acting as a standard-setter in its own right, to help drive greater consistency and better outcomes for stakeholders around MSEs.
  4. Design of effective human rights based operational grievance mechanism for construction activities that address community concerns during land acquisition, as well as in the subsequent construction and operational stages of new venues or facilities. There are already tools and guidance available for large scale development projects that could be modified for this purpose.
  5. Where appropriate, facilitating in the appointment of independent Ombudsmen or advisors to support grievance processes.
  6. Developing annual indices to benchmark the adoption of human rights due diligence approaches and the reported performance of vendors and their suppliers in the lead-up to an event.

In seeking to promote the use of human rights due diligence in relation to MSE procurement, the paper also concludes that is important to define where the respective responsibilities lie between host governments, organising committees, and the SGB. Ideally for local communities, accountability must reside with the organising committee delivering the event, and the government backing it. Ultimately it is the organising committee that locally awards, and thereafter manages, the procurement contracts and service agreements that are essential for a successful event. In contrast, SGBs are best placed to act as enablers, encouraging the responsible behaviour of host governments and embedding human rights due diligence requirements into the contract terms for each event, and thereafter providing high-level oversight to track their on-the-ground delivery.


An independent centre / entity could play a very different role in each of these areas.

Subject of course to the willingness and interest of the respective SGB, and the MSE host organisation, to tap into the available expertise and knowledge held by a centre / entity.

Decent Work and Economic GrowthPeace and JusticeReduced Inequalities
Guidelines and reports

White Paper – Human Rights Risk Mitigation in the Sports Context

Mega Sporting Events

A total of 11 White Papers have been produced, clustered into four themes referring to key stakeholder groups. These White Papers aim to present the latest thinking, practice, and debate in relation to key human rights issues involved in the planning, construction, delivery, and legacy of MSEs. Each paper also considers the case for, and potential role of, an independent centre of expertise on MSEs and human rights.

Despite commitments from a number of the leading sports governing bodies to include human rights in future bidding processes for events, there is presently no mega-sporting event (MSE) in the pipeline that was awarded hosting status premised on explicit human rights commitments, beyond limited criteria touching on labour standards in the supply chain and broader questions of non-discrimination. The timescale for putting such measures is evolving, but even if and when human rights measures are in place, not all adverse impacts caused by the lifecycle of developing and delivering an event will be preventable. Where there is potential for harm to occur, stakeholders must identify, mitigate and remediate those impacts, as outlined in the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and related international standards.
Mitigating human rights risks means identifying salient human rights impacts and taking steps to reduce the adverse effects of those impacts. While the range of human rights risks associated with delivering a major event is broad, the MSE Platform Steering Committee has identified (a) forced labour and human trafficking and (b) security and policing as areas of high priority for stakeholders, and pertinent risks in the context of currently awarded events.

Accordingly, this paper is divided into two sections, first focusing on human trafficking and forced labour, and second on security and policing
Several of the issues raised are expanded upon in the appendices and annexes.


The various sections of this paper draw a number of conclusions and propose a series of recommendations, especially with regard to the potential function of an independent centre of expertise on MSEs and human rights.

Decent Work and Economic GrowthPeace and JusticeReduced Inequalities
Guidelines and reports

White Paper – Remedy Mechanisms for Human Rights in the Sports Context

Mega Sporting Events

A total of 11 White Papers have been produced, clustered into four themes referring to key stakeholder groups. These White Papers aim to present the latest thinking, practice, and debate in relation to key human rights issues involved in the planning, construction, delivery, and legacy of MSEs. Each paper also considers the case for, and potential role of, an independent centre of expertise on MSEs and human rights.

Access to remedy is one of the three pillars of UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UN Guiding Principles). It is also a key component of the mandate of National Contact Points (NCP) for the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and National Human Rights Institutions (OECD Guidelines). In the context of international sport, specific dispute resolution mechanisms exist. In some cases, they address human rights issues such as the right to a fair trial. However, they have not been designed to address all the human rights-related issues that may arise from Mega Sporting Events (MSE), be it human rights issues within sports events themselves, or human rights impacts related to the organisation and holding of sports events. On the other hand, a range of other mechanisms exist which complement sports-related ones, including judicial mechanisms, such as national courts and tribunals, as well as a range of non-judicial mechanisms.


This paper maps out various means of access to remedy in a sport-related context, including mechanisms within selected sports bodies and institutions, and identifies current gaps in dealing with human rights-related issues, as well as judicial and nonjudicial mechanisms that may be used to deal with human rights issues. For each mechanism, the strengths and challenges in dealing with human rights-related issues are briefly indicated. The paper then identifies the gaps in access to remedy, suggests how they might be filled and provides recommendations on the role that a mega sporting events centre or mechanism (MSE Centre) might play in providing guidance on existing mechanisms, in addressing gaps and in providing access to a remedy for the victims of human rights abuse in connection with a MSE.


Three major gaps have been identified:
• There is presently an absence of a binding and standing human rights policy and capacity across international sport within major international sports organisations
(ISOs) and, as a consequence, no recourse to dispute resolution through such channels can be had for cases related to human rights
• Notwithstanding the capacity of ISOs to protect, promote and enforce human rights through a sports-based grievance mechanism, such a mechanism has not been created
• There is a lack of recognition and promotion by ISOs of external dispute resolution mechanisms. All mechanisms for remedy need to be promoted and accessible in the event that more consensual mechanisms fail. As this paper identifies, in addition to sports specific mechanisms, a range of other mechanisms exist, which, if functioning well, could provide access to remedy in a range of situations

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