02 Apr The Ocean Race’s climate ambitions meet reality at host city events
Demonstrating a will to actively tackle climate change, The Ocean Race is a frontrunner in the sporting world. However, to translate an ambitious sustainability strategy into practical event production is not easy. It is nevertheless the challenge that The Ocean Race are tasked with.
This January saw the beginning of the Volvo Ocean Race 2022-23 for IMOCA and VO65 boats in Alicante. A huge attraction, with more than 50.000 visitors just in the first weekend, the Alicante event was not only about boats and racing, but it also hosted a streetfood marked, a digital gaming house and a range of concerts and activities for both sailing enthusiasts as well as families enjoying a day out. With so many people together, a significant CO2e footprint is to be expected.
However, the round-the-globe race itself also emits a significant amount of CO2. This is why the Ocean Race has committed to reduce the event’s negative impact on the climate, because, as the race acknowledges, nature and the ocean is central to its very existence.
Indeed, the Volvo Ocean Race is an UNSCAF (UN Sports for Climate Action) signatory and committed to Race to Zero, meaning that they’ve committed to 50% reduction in GHGs by 2030 and aim for net zero emissions by 2040. The UN Sports for Climate Action framework is an ambitious network of more than 300 sports organisations and clubs from all over the world, united in this UN initiative.
Racing with Purpose
The race’s own sustainability programme is called Racing with Purpose and is no less ambitious. For this edition of the race, the Race aims to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 75% compared with the previous edition of the Race. This includes the race itself, the organisation, as well as the host city events. By investing in ocean projects that will restore vital marine habitats and protect mangroves, the Ocean Race has furthermore expressed an ambition to become one of the world’s first climate positive events.
Weeks before the start of the Race, skippers and managers, on behalf of each of the 11 teams taking part in the 50th anniversary edition of The Ocean Race, signed the Race Team Sustainability Charter; a joint commitment to protecting and “standing up for the seas.”
The fleet-wide pledge details actions for the teams across four key themes:
– Advocacy: Teams commit to being a voice for the ocean, raising awareness of the issues affecting it and inspiring their sponsors, partners and legions of fans to help to protect the seas. They also recognise the ocean’s right to thrive and support the Race’s One Blue Voice campaign that calls for a Universal Declaration of Ocean Rights.
– Science: Each boat will carry onboard scientific equipment to gather vital ocean data, helping scientists to better understand the seas and the impact of human-activity on them, contributing to the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science.
– Learning: Teams will help to amplify The Ocean Race’s Learning programmes, which teach young people about the threats to the seas and empower them to take action. They will also visit schools to run ocean-based workshops and host them on their boats to help them get an insight into life at sea.
– Operations: Among the 10 operational commitments, teams are required to have renewable energy onboard, avoid all single-use plastic, and minimise, measure and balance their unavoidable greenhouse gas emissions.
Case study: Alicante – when ambitions meet reality
The Ocean Race 2022-23 takes place in eight different host cities across the globe, making the race organisation de facto dependent on the facilities and capabilities of the event organisationens in those cities.
In Alicante, on the weekend where the teams would cross the starting line, the event area – the Ocean Live Park – was shimmering with banners and screens showing messages like “MAKE WAVES FOR OCEANS RIGHTS” and “THE RACE IS ON FOR THE OCEANS”, while all of the five IMOCA boats (the foiling type of boat) boasted their own climate-related messages such as “THE RACE WE MUST WIN”and “CLIMATE ACTION NOW”. The first boat built purposefully for the Ocean Race, the IMOCA 60 Mālama crewed by the 11th Hour Racing team and captained by Charlie Enright, took it to another level, as they also presented their own One Blue Voice immersive experience at the event.
But how well did the organisation do overall in implementing The Ocean Race’s ambitious climate goals into the actual event in Alicante? Well, some measures were definitely taken to reduce the negative impact of the event, but indeed also to use the event as a platform to educate visitors on climate change and climate action. The educational part is clearly something that The Ocean Race takes very seriously, and have developed both online and physical initiatives to drive it. The One Blue Voice Immersive Experience; a multisensory, holographic show, which had been created in collaboration with 11th Hour Racing, took visitors in Alicante on a journey beneath the waves to discover the race to protect the seas – in order to give them a new perspective on the ocean. Outside of this building, there was an option to sign a petition for a “Universal declaration of ocean rights”; a concept that the Race introduces and describes as follows on the website:
Action is urgently needed to not just protect the seas, but to restore them. We believe it starts with the recognition of ocean rights. Valuing our marine world, not just for the services that it provides to us, but because the ocean has a right to thrive, is absolutely crucial. Just as we have one ocean, we need one overarching framework to protect it. A global approach to protecting the marine environment would help to shift perception of how we treat it, from a resource to use and exploit, to a vital, complex, system that fuels all life on the planet.
(https://www.theoceanrace.com/en/racing-with-purpose/summits-and-policy)
The workshop programme for the week contained a series of learning workshops for children, for instance exploring some of the major threats to the seas, such as climate change and plastic pollution, and what can be done to turn things around. These learning modules are also made available online.
As for the onsite initiatives to produce a more sustainable event, some missteps could be found. Waste separation was available but not very clear in the communication, thus not properly used by the visitors. (See example of mixed up buckets below). A reusable cup system was in place, in order to avoid single-use plastics, but even though customers paid 0,50€ per cup, there was no visible way of getting the fifty cent back or of depositing the cups in a specific container – for cleaning and reuse. Resulting in that most of the cups seemed to end up in the “plastics” bin or, even worse, in the residual waste bin. The same was the case for the “compostable serviceware” that unfortunately did not seem to be collected properly for a composting proces
Lastly, the Race’s stated ambition to have two thirds of food served be vegetarian, while also promoting an “vegan first” approach to caterers, was unsuccessful. Almost all the food served at the event was indeed “meat first”.
One very visible item onsite was the large banners and flags with climate and ocean messages. According to the Ocean Race website, these were all made from recycled plastics and would be carefully collected for reuse afterwards. Venue dressing is typically a real headache for event producers, as there are few sustainable yet durable materials to choose from, and they are oftentimes not easy to recycle. So if the info on the website is correct, this is a big plus.
Speaking of websites: With such a strong focus from the Race’s side on knowledge-sharing, learning and transparency on sustainability measures, it was a shame to find the Alicante host city website completely lacking this information. There was one tab at the very bottom of the page named “Sustainability”; this had however not been updated since 2018, when the last Ocean Race event took place.
Case study: Aarhus – planning for sustainability
In may 2023, The Ocean Race will reach Aarhus. After a route that takes the boats and their teams around the globe, the fifth leg ends in Aarhus. The second city in Denmark, Aarhus has previously hosted a stop-over, and will this time be a full scale host city. The event is produced by Aarhus Events – Municipality of Aarhus, and I talked to Rasmus Hørsted Jensen, responsible for sustainability at the week-long Aarhus event.
I asked him the following questions:
– What are the three most important initiatives that you have planned in relation to sustainability?
– What is the hardest part of translating the large ambitions from the main organisation into a physical event?
The three most important initiatives are, according to Rasmus Hørsted, hard to point out. But when pressured a bit, he chose to group more initiatives into one that he called housekeeping. Thus, housekeeping in this case covers the basic stuff; things that somehow should be in place by now (but as we know still can be difficult): Waste separation, sustainable food choices, avoiding single-use plastics, buying certified products etc. etc.
The second of the most important initiatives is the event’s focus on innovation, which for instance means engaging university students in Aarhus in a process to develop new ways of reusing old venue dressing or come up with new ways of thinking of it entirely. Rasmus Hørsted mentions that the furniture industry’s “design for disassembly” design thinking should be extended to designing banners and other temporary material – they can be properly recycled or might even directly reused, if we do it right in the design phase.
Third of the most important initiatives in Aarhus is a more radical one. The event wishes to price food and beverage in a way that makes the more sustainable choice the cheapest one. For instance pricing the veggie burger lower than the one with meat. There are still some practical issues to figure out in this space though, he mentions.
As for the hardest part of creating an actual event on the basis of an ambitious, but also more generic, sustainability strategy, Hørsted is not in doubt. “The hardest part is to make the entire team understand why we do why we do, and then be able to execute on it.” In other terms, it is the management task of engaging all staff, volunteers and collaborators in the ambition. “It’s all about people”, he adds.
The sailing world taking the lead
The Ocean Race are not the only organisation in the sailing world to push forward against the climate crisis. Sail GP is another international sailing competition using high performance F50 foiling catamarans, where teams compete across a season of multiple grands prix in locations across the world. In 2021, Sail GP launched the Impact League, The Impact League, an initiative that sees teams compete for a second Championship, making sustainability central to the sport. Essentially using the teams’ competitive mindset in a new way, Sail GP’s Impact League puts sustainability at the center of attention along with the rest of the race, as part of the sport’s purpose.
At The Ocean Race, all boats collects data on the impact of climate change and plastic pollution. This is – similar to Sail GP’s Impact League initiative – something that puts sustainability at the center of the race, de facto making it part of the sport. The difference is that Sail GP scores its teams on their sustainability efforts, which The Ocean Race does not – yet. Both organisations have however very cleverly put sustainable ACTIONS at the heart of the races.
In brief…
It is a huge challenge to any organisation when the sustainability goals meet the everyday habits of people or the logistical conditions of an event site, and it might seem easier to just lower the ambitions. The sailing world seems to be doing the opposite. And they should be applauded for that. Because even if there is room for improvement on the onsite event production, The Ocean Race shows us the necessity of climate action.
The third leg of the Ocean Race took off from Cape Town weeks ago, and today they reached Brazil.
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