World Sailing first International Federation to be awarded sustainability standard

Nacra 17 fleet - World Cup Series Hyeres © Pedro Martinez / Sailing Energy / World Sailing

World Sailing, the world governing body of the sport, has become the first International Sports Federation to be awarded the international sustainability standard ISO 20121.

ISO 20121 specifies the requirements for an Event Sustainability Management System to improve the sustainability of events. The standard provides building blocks that enable organisations to continue to be financially successful, become more socially responsible and reduce its environmental footprint.

The United Nations recognises sport as being a "key enabler of sustainable development" and World Sailing can influence numerous events which it owns and sanctions to be more sustainable on a global scale.

World Sailing's targets range from gender equality in the sport, accessible sustainability training, elimination of single use plastics, reduction in carbon emissions, research and participation.

Dan Reading, World Sailing's Sustainability Programme Manager commented, "Creating a management system is the first logical step for World Sailing to take to ensure its operations are delivered in a more sustainable way.

"We wanted to receive third party certification to assure our stakeholders that we have a robust system in place. The whole process is based on continual improvement and World Sailing will be independently assessed by the British Standards Institute every six months to ensure that improvements are made.

"Part of the process is to involve stakeholders in the creation of targets and we are still collecting feedback for our ambitious strategy which we will deliver over the next twelve years through our Sustainability Agenda 2030 consultation."

World Sailing launched Sustainability Agenda 2030, the governing body's ambitious commitment to help create a better world through sport, in November 2017.

Sustainability 2030 includes a series of challenging targets for the sport across technical standards, events, training, venues and facilities, members and participation. A consultation process is ongoing ahead of the targets being finalised in May 2018.

The Sustainability Agenda 2030 can be downloaded and reviewed to add more context and the survey is in 3 different languages and can be accessed here: www.sailing.org/news/sustainability#.WiZu0racZuU

World Sailing's Official Technology Partner, SAP and Automotive Partner, Volvo Ocean Race, Volvo Group and Volvo Car Group and Official Timepiece Rolex have pledged their support to working with World Sailing on sustainability programmes.