Asia Triathlon

ITU was represented at the 8th IOC World Conference on Sport and the Environment in Vancouver, Canada this week by Loreen Barnett, ITU Secretary General, Les McDonald ITU Honorary President and Enrique Quesada, ITU Events Department.

It was very interesting to learn that ITU is actually doing some positive things to compliment global sustainability objectives, such as flying the ‘Ecoflag’ and the ISO 14001 work that has been done by the Madrid ITU Triathlon World Cup.

Through a number of workshops and panel discussions, several interesting outcomes were agreed to:
-More action and less theory;
-Involving and learning from youth this needs to move beyond a clich;
-Sustainable sport goes beyond just sport and the environment to include social, economic and environmental factors;
-Sport is a powerful vehicle to promote sustainability;
-Storytelling is a winderful tool to inspire and move to action, rather than checklists;
-Corporate sponsors are developing innovative programmes for employees and products that demonstrate to their stakeholders the positive impact on the bottom-line.
-‘Green washing’ can be avoided by reporting and better accounting.
-Building community must be a central theme in any sustainability programme.

We all need to focus on our own sphere of influence, or as Ghandi said, We must be the change we want to see in the world.