Sustainability

Blue Marine Foundation

In 2013, the Blue Marine Foundation and Extreme Sailing Series™ organisers OC Sport, announced a global partnership across all of the companies properties.

The Blue Marine Foundation (BLUE) is a UK registered charity set up in 2010 by the team behind the award-winning film ‘The End of the Line’ and exists to fix the largest solvable problem on the planet - the crisis in the oceans. BLUE aims to actively and effectively protect 10% of the world’s oceans by 2020, through a network of marine reserves and private sector led solutions in the sea. Since its inception BLUE has raised $12m and helped double the area of ocean under full protection globally.

This partnership between OC Sport and BLUE aims to provide a platform to further communicate to both the private and public sectors, as well as the media. As ‘Environmental Partner’, BLUE has visibility across OC Sport’s events and work with our partners and clients to support their fundraising efforts.

As a business OC Sport is committed to organising events in a sustainable manner and in collaboration with specialist consultancy, BlueShift, has out in place a sustainability programme for its events that measures impact and, importantly, looks at ways to reduce that impact on the environment.

For further information about the Blue Marine Foundation, click here.

‘Open to Change’ Sustainability Programme
Sustainability is about making positive and lasting changes in the way we use natural and human resources to improve quality of life for all. The Extreme Sailing Series™ brings sporting entertainment to the shores of venues around the world. This kind of sailing not only provides great entertainment but also uses a sport that in more general terms illustrates well some of the values of a more sustainable way of going about our lives and work. As organisers, our responsibility is to embed sustainability in our working practice, even with an event which by definition (global circuit) has an unavoidable footprint.

The Extreme Sailing Series™ vision is to organise entertaining, safe, environmentally and socially friendly events and leave a sustainable legacy for the venues and the public. OC Sport is committed to maximising the economic, social, environmental and sporting benefits the events bring to its partners, to the venues, the public and the sailing teams. We make the commitment to deliver as best we can low-footprint (low-carbon, low-waste) accessible and ethical events.

To do so, we have created a program called “Open to Change” with three main pillars:

1. Energy & Water
We are keen to demonstrate long-term solutions in terms of energy and water resource management, transport, local food and catering. We aim to minimise the environmental footprint and carbon emissions of events and legacy development, notably by optimising energy efficiency, energy demand and use of low carbon energy sources.

2. Waste and recycling
We will minimise waste at source, divert construction waste and all event-time waste away from landfill wherever feasible, and promote the waste hierarchy of ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ to facilitate long-term individual behavioural change.

3. Community engagement
In the organisation of the Extreme Sailing Series™, we will ensure that local community (including local yacht clubs, the local government etc) is adequately consulted during the event planning stage. We will aim to involve local community groups in the event where practicable (e.g. schools, charities etc). We will recruit workers and volunteers from local workforce.

Through this sustainability charter, we aim to support the following legacy goals:

- Provide minimal negative impacts on the environment

- Check responsible sourcing

- Bring excellent customer experience

- Provide a safe and secure atmosphere

- Encourage more sustainable behaviour

- Inspire young generations to practice sport and sailing

- Involve local communities

- Leave a positive legacy