The Hellenic Basketball Federation has implemented a series of sustainability initiatives as a result of its commitment to environmental and social sustainability. This includes a series of campaigns directed towards recycling, sustainable travel, environmental impact reporting, and hosting workshops to educate and raise awareness on sustainability issues.
Objectives:
As the sustainability initiatives are diverse, there is also a wide range of objectives following these programs, including:
- Reducing waste & increasing recycling and major events
- Promote sustainable travel habits amongst teams and therefore reduce the carbon footprint of travelling to matches
- Improve monitoring of the federation’s environmental impact
- Increase environmental awareness and actions within the basketball community
Description of the practice:
As mentioned in the previous two sections, this practice is split into a few categories for promoting environmental sustainability. Recycling and waste management at major events revolve around waste recycling rates in terms of kilos compared to previous events, reducing plastic and greenhouse emissions. For sustainable travel, teams use buses to reduce emissions. Ultimately, the federation also hosted workshops and shared their work in international settings and conferences to inspire other teams, sports and leagues, to implement similar sustainability initiatives.
Impacts & Results
Following the implementation of the initiatives, more than 100 recycling bins were placed around the area during matches, where almost 4 tonnes of plastic, paper and aluminium waste was collected 77 percent of which was recycled, avoiding the felling of trees, reducing carbon emissions and decreasing plastic pollution. In 2023, the Hellenic Basketball Federation also shared some of these practices with the Munich European FIBA federations conference.
Conclusion & suggestion for youth workers:
Whilst most organisations do not have the same resources as the Hellenic Basketball Federation, there are many lessons and areas you can apply for your organisation—recycling bins. Instead of putting out 100, put out a few. Create systems where players can carpool, or during larger events rent a bus instead to cut down on emissions. Another vital point of the recycling campaign by the Hellenic Basketball Federation is plastic use, the use of paper or even reusable products to reduce the use of single-use plastic.
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