World Sailing gains international recognition for its work on reducing carbon emissions across the sport

World Sailing, the world governing body of the sport, have picked up two international awards for its work addressing its own carbon emissions and those that are created through the sport.

World Sailing is a founding member of the United Nation’s Climate Change Sports for Climate Action Framework and have a variety of targets relating to reducing the carbon footprint of the sport. 
 
In recognition of this, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) awarded World Sailing with an award for carbon action. The award, which is sponsored by DOW, the IOC’s carbon partner, comprises of retired carbon credits which will be used to offset World Sailing’s Carbon Footprint for unavoidable emissions making the organisation carbon neutral for all its activities in 2019. 
 
Julie Duffus, IOC Olympic Movement Sustainability Manager, commented, “We have been very impressed with World Sailing’s carbon reduction plans and leadership in the field of sustainability. We look forward to working in partnership through the UN’s Sports for Climate Action Framework to reduce carbon emissions in sport as well as use the platform to educate sports fans.”
 
Furthermore, World Sailing picked up the Climate Action Collective Award from Beyond Sport. This award was given for the work that contributes to the UN Sustainable Development Goal ‘Climate Action’.
 
As part of the prize, World Sailing will receive funding from Beyond Sport to maximise its work and will work collaboratively with other winners to reduce carbon emissions in their respective sports.
 
Kim Andersen, World Sailing President, commented, “We are delighted that our work addressing our carbon footprint has been recognised and the combination of prizes will allow us to accelerate our progress. We have set ourselves ambitious targets to reduce our carbon emissions by 50% by 2024 as well as being carbon neutral by 2022.”
 
Dan Reading, Head Of Sustainability added, “After comprehensively measuring the carbon footprint of our activities we have been able to prioritise areas for significant reductions through policy and technology. For example, we are working with Paris 2024 to accelerate the adoption of electric RIBs suitable for support boats which will result in a significant reduction in our emissions for events and has the potential to make a dent in the wider marine industries carbon footprint.”
 
World Sailing received the Beyond Sport Award at its global awards ceremony and the IOC Award during the during the annual IF Forum, currently taking place in Lausanne.