Background
SailGP is the world’s most exciting racing on water. The global championship features national teams battling in short, intense races at iconic stadium-style venues across the globe. The high-tech, high-speed action features sailing’s best athletes racing in identical hydrofoiling F50 catamarans, flying at speeds approaching 100 km/h.
But beyond the heart-stopping action, SailGP is driven by a greater purpose. It races for a better future – for a better sport and a better planet. SailGP’s aspiration is to be the world’s most purpose-driven and sustainable global sport and entertainment platform, harnessing the transformative power of sport for good.
The Challenge
How do you embed sustainability into the fabric of sport and ignite the competitive nature of athletes to drive climate action and inclusivity? And how do you do it in a way that amplifies the competition rather than detracting from it? This was the ambitious brief SailGP challenged Think Beyond to deliver, pushing the consultancy to redefine performance in sport.
The Solution
Think Beyond has worked with SailGP since 2018 as its lead purpose and impact partner to define and accelerate how sustainability and social impact is embedded across the organisation and raise the profile of the startup league.
Think Beyond developed SailGP’s leading sustainability strategy Better Sport, Better Planet, as well as its first carbon plan, climate transition plan, marine mammal management plan and net-zero strategy, setting an ambitious target of 55 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2025 and net zero by 2040.
Through Think Beyond’s development of an on-water transition project, the purpose-driven league has also committed to delivering all its events using 100 percent clean energy on-shore and on-water by 2025.
By joining forces with Think Beyond, SailGP became the world’s first climate-positive sport and entertainment property, and the first league to collectively join the UN Sports for Climate Action Framework along with all its teams.
Think Beyond also worked with SailGP to develop and implement its sustainability management system, ISO 20121, to underpin the delivery of its purpose strategy.
With an enviable foundation set, it was time to take things to the next level.
A podium for the planet
As an innovative way to embed sustainability across the SailGP Teams and ignite the competitive nature of its world class athletes, Think Beyond played an instrumental role in supporting the SailGP Impact League – sport’s first podium for the planet.
Launched in Season 2, the world-first initiative is a second leaderboard running alongside the competition on the water that rewards the positive actions its teams take to reduce their carbon footprint and accelerate inclusivity in sailing. Teams compete and are held accountable across ten key sustainability criteria, ranging from developing new technologies focusing on clean energy solutions and removing all single-use plastics, to diversity and inclusion and using the team’s voice for good.
At the end of the season there are two podiums, with the Impact League winner crowned alongside the Season Champion and earning funding for its purpose partner.
Think Beyond has provided strategic feedback to SailGP’s Purpose Team as the Impact League has evolved, ensuring it remains engaging, exciting and motivating for teams, as well as developing resources to support teams to track their carbon emissions.
The Impact
- SailGP became the world’s first climate-positive sport and entertainment property, as well as the first sport league with its competing teams to sign the UN Sport for Climate Action Framework.
- SailGP became the first sport to disclose its carbon strategy with the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) – an international non-profit organisation that works with companies and cities to manage their environmental impacts.
- SailGP is the first league to achieve both the Carbon Neutral International Standard and three gold medals in the U.N. Climate Neutral Now Initiative.
- Winners of the BBC Sport Ambition and Impact Award, and the Sport Industry Environmental Sustainability Award.
- 71% of SailGP employees feel SailGP is a purpose-driven company, while 69% of employees believe SailGP really allows them to make a positive difference.
- On average, 80% of SailGP’s prospective partner commercial propositions centre around purpose.
- In Season 3, SailGP delivered five events 100 percent powered by clean energy, an increase from one in Season 2.
- Through its industry-leading partnership with Kuehne+Nagel, SailGP reduced its freight emissions by 83 percent in Season 3 compared to Season 2 by eliminating air freight, opting for sea transportation, selecting efficient, low-carbon routes and insetting any unavoidable emissions through biofuels.
The Impact League has also gone from strength to strength, with teams embracing sustainability as part of their high-performance mindset.
- ROCKWOOL Denmark SailGP Team developed a number of innovative purpose campaigns and initiatives, including attracting more than 25 million views of its sustainability content series Beneath the Surface, making them worthy winners of the Season 3 title.
- The France SailGP Team pioneered the use of a hydrogen generator to power part of the France Sail Grand Prix, and the New Zealand team, in collaboration with Live Ocean Foundation, coordinated the Voices for A Healthy Ocean declaration, uniting athletes in raising awareness of ocean health.
- SailGP teams cut their energy consumption by 50 percent in Season 3 through monitoring and understanding their energy needs much better, while a survey found over three quarters of athletes believed the Impact League had inspired them to live more sustainably in their daily lives.
- Driven by the Impact League, the Emirates Great Britain SailGP Team secured a commercial partnership with Low Carbon. The France SailGP Team has partnered with ACCOR to support its Impact League ambitions, while ROCKWOOL’s title partnership with the Denmark SailGP Team centres on activating its sustainability strategy.
- The Impact League also generated more than 7000 pieces of media coverage on its purpose in Season 3 with an advertising value of USD $149 million and a reach of 1.6 billion – being featured in Forbes, New York Times, BBC Sport and others.
Embarking on Your Sustainability Journey
The journey of SailGP, underpinned by its Better Sport, Better Planet strategy and groundbreaking Impact League, exemplifies the profound impact sustainability can have on both an organisation, the planet and its business success.
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