Adidas project, Move for the Planet is an initiative to utilise sports to promote sustainability. By reducing the plastic and carbon footprints of sports, contributing to resilient sports facilities and creating sports equipment with recycled materials, the project contributes to a sustainable world.
Objectives:
The project has numerous objectives including the following:
- Promote education on sustainability in sports
- Promote sustainable management reducing plastic use
- Utilise recycled materials for new sports equipment
- Contribute to adaptive and resilient sports facilities
- Improving accessibility to educational awareness activities relating to environmental sustainability
- Reduce carbon footprint, bolster circularity and water conservation within the sporting sector
Description of the project:
The project has hosted numerous initiatives and programmes in many areas of the world, in Greece, bottle caps were recycled to create an artificial football pitch. They have also implemented solar panels or numerous arenas and stadiums, contributing to green stadiums, and reducing costs. As a part of the project, they have also financed water retention systems as a part of grass pitches, where rainwater has been purified to provide clean drinking water to local communities in South Africa.
Outcomes & Results:
Considering the size of the project there are many results of the projects, unfortunately, we cannot cover all here. But based on the initiatives mentioned in the previous sector, here are some concrete outcomes. For the project in Greece, 200,000 bottle caps were recycled which became 300kg of recyclable material. This helped create sports equipment and artificial pitch that benefited over 800 players. In Cambodia, 16 solar panel lights were established to support the use of the pitch during the night and provide electricity to local populations. Finally, in South Africa, the rainwater retention system incorporated into the football field provides 17 million litres of water each year to local communities.
Conclusion & suggestion for youth workers:
Not all of the practices of Move for the Planet will be applicable or possible to replicate for smaller sports organisations and youth workers. However, they are universal lessons we can draw from the implemented initiatives and practices. The project promotes sport, inclusivity as well as social and environmental sustainability. This type of holistic approach results in the project having many benefits, for the environment and people. Those types of synergies are crucial to ensure that the project we implement covers several areas and provides many benefits. The recycling example of reusing caps to create new equipment is also a valuable tool we can utilize.
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