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In April 2020, World Athletics launched its Sustainability Strategy for 2020-2030. The ten-year strategy is set to provide a framework to the organisation, its Member Federations and its event organisers on how to produce tangible, meaningful and measurable results on environmental, social and economic sustainability. The main objective is to protect the local communities within which the millions of athletes, both competitive and recreational, participate in the sport with the vision of becoming “the leading International Sports Federation in delivering best in class sustainable events”.

The World Athletics strategy has been designed in alignment with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the IOC Sustainability Strategy and identifies three spheres of responsibility: World Athletics as an organisation (including its Member Federations), the events owned by World Athletics, and those which hold a World Athletics’ Permit or are licensed events.

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World Athletics (WA) is the global governing body for the sport of Athletics. Today World Athletics encompasses track and field, race walking, road running, cross-country, mountain and trail running. Boasting 214 national Member Federations, World Athletics has significant global reach, and is responsible for the worldwide development of the sport of athletics. World Athletics is committed to ensuring that its athletics events, which are held all over the world, and its headquarters, based in Monaco, are fully aligned to the principles of sustainability. This is in recognition of the growing environmental challenges that the world faces today, specifically air pollution, climate change and our overconsumption of resources. Those, coupled with a lack of global equality and diversity, create an environmental and social impact that poses a serious threat to the quality of our lives and communities. Sustainability within athletics is defined as driving the practices and behaviours of all individuals and organisations developing the sport in such a way that it:

• accounts for the needs of future generations;
• provides a fair and level sporting platform based on sound ethical principles;
• actively involves interested parties and is open about decisions and activities; and
• ensures actions take a balanced approach to their social, economic and environmental impact

In April 2020, World Athletics announced its Sustainability Strategy, whose central goal is to make the organisation carbon neutral by 2030. The ten-year strategy is designed to deliver tangible benefits across the three pillars of sustainability - environmental, social and economic - by using the power of sport and athletics to create a better world for communities. The strategy includes a broad commitment to embrace sustainability principles and practices within its operations, its Member Federations and the organisation of future World Athletics Series events. The key benefits of the strategy include:

• better management of the sport’s social and environmental risk factors;
• identification of opportunities benefitting the sport and engaging a wider group of stakeholders;
• more efficient use of resources delivering lower operating costs enabling greater investment in the sport; and
• wider activation platform for partnerships to bringing significant economic, social and environmental benefits to local communities.

Components of the Sustainability Strategy include a plan to reduce World Athletics’ carbon output by 10 percent each year, a switch to 100 percent renewable energy at its headquarters by the end of 2020, the introduction of a sustainable procurement code and travel policy and to develop best practice guides for its 214 Member Federations and its event organisers. The strategy is divided into six pillars, each of which contain actions and targets for the organisation to pursue:

• leadership in sustainability;
• sustainable production and consumption;
• climate change and carbon;
• local environment and air quality;
• global equality; and
• diversity, accessibility and wellbeing.

As an international organisation, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) takes its responsibility to protect, cherish and limit its impact on the environment seriously. FIFA aims to lead by example and inspire greater awareness and best practices in sustainability standards with regard to FIFA World Cups™ and FIFA as an organisation.
Since 2010, FIFA has been measuring, reducing and mitigating its impact on climate change as well as engaging with its stakeholders to promote awareness on climate change.

OBJECTIVES
Since 2010, FIFA has engaged in carbon management to improve the sustainability of its operations and events by:

• Estimating the carbon emissions of
  FIFA competitions.
• Implementing reduction measures,
• Offsetting its controlled and
  unavoidable emissions.
• Engaging with stakeholders to help
  raise awareness on climate change.

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Click here to download FIFA Background Paper

This guide is a continually growing list of practical ideas for event organisers to take on.

This guide includes a continually growing list of practical ideas to be taken on operators, instructors, guides and recreational rafters.

In January 2021, the international Rafting Federation launched a series of practical guides to help rafters across the globe undertake a more sustainable approach to rafting.

The first guide is a “living” document which will be evaluated and revised on a regular basis, in response to changes in technology and the understanding of the significance of environmental sustainability in the sphere of rafting.

Content include:

A. Our commitment to Sustainability
B. Sustainability in all Rafting
C. Sustainability in Recreational Rafting, Racing and Guiding
D. Sustainability in Rafting Events
E. As an Athlete - what can I do?
F. Notes
G. Resources