Tag: IOC

IOC commits to cutting its greenhouse gas emissions by 50 per cent by 2030

Stuart Mitchell

The announcement was made by IOC President Thomas Bach during the General Assembly of the Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC), currently taking place in Greece. It was made ahead of the UN Climate Summit (COP26) at the end of October in Glasgow, Great Britain. With this decision, the IOC increases its level of ambition from a previous commitment that set a 45 per cent reduction over the same time period, in line with the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. “The climate crisis is arguably the biggest challenge humanity is facing,” said…

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IOC Reveals Details of Its “Olympic Forest” Project

Stuart Mitchell

The International Olympic Committee has announced details of a project to plant an ‘Olympic Forest’ in Mali and Senegal as part of a major environmental project. The project is a contribution to the Great Green Wall initiative, which restores degraded landscapes across Africa’s Sahel region. It will involve planting around 355,000 native trees across approximately 90 villages in Mali and Senegal – host of the Youth Olympic Games Dakar 2026 – and will cover a combined area of around 2,120 hectares. More than planting trees, the Olympic Forest will contribute to increasing…

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IOC to Be Climate Positive in 2024

Stuart Mitchell

In addition to reducing its emissions, the IOC will offset more than 100 per cent of its remaining carbon emissions. This will be mainly done through the Olympic Forest project, which is part of the Great Green Wall – an existing UN-backed initiative to combat desertification in Africa’s Sahel region. These offsets will make the IOC climate positive by 2024, meaning that it will be removing more carbon from the atmosphere than it emits. The IOC will also continue to use its influence to encourage others within the sports world to take…

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New IOC Guide to Make Sustainability “Business as Usual” for the Olympic Movement

Stuart Mitchell

New IOC Guide to Make Sustainability “Business as Usual” for the Olympic Movement The guidelines – called “Sustainability Management in Sports” – will help National Olympic Committees (NOCs) and International Federations (IFs) integrate sustainability into their operations and events. Part of the IOC’s “Sustainability Essentials” series, the guidelines respond to the recommendations of Olympic Agenda 2020 – the strategic roadmap for the future of the Olympic Movement – which pledges to develop common methodologies and tools to help embed sustainability across all Olympic Movement operations. “The global sports community has…

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UN Global Compact and UNESCO’s IOC Join Forces to Advance Science-based Sustainable Ocean Business

Stuart Mitchell

The UN Global Compact has renewed its commitment to advancing science-based sustainable ocean business by signing a letter of intent with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (UNESCO’s IOC), the UN agency charged with the preparation of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development. The UN Global Compact’s Action Platform for Sustainable Ocean Business will play a key role in mobilizing the private sector in the upcoming UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development. Scheduled to start in 2021, the Ocean Decade…

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