Pilot partners

The four sports organisations participating in this project – the Gaelic Athletic Association, the Danish Football Association, FC Porto and the Welsh Football Association have a very valuable role of being the carriers of changes and improvements in environmental management in sports. Thanks to their commitment, the technical partners ACR+ and Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies will have access to screening these sports organisations’ current practices and understanding their overall environmental performances, as well as identifying potentials for their improvements. The screening will give answers to what hotspots should be highlighted and where lie the biggest potentials for achieving better environmental management. Once screened, a number of local and regional stakeholders including public authorities, would be brought onto the project to enhance the implementation of various strategies, action plans and other policies in sports.

This process will be reflected in four Circular City Committees, coordinated by each sport organisation which would be meeting on a regular basis. These Committees would gather local and regional stakeholders relevant for various aspects of environmental management that would be previously identified and confirmed for improvements. The methodology identified for this process – Community of Practices, would allow each stakeholder to contribute to the cause with its expertise and available tools and ultimately – enhance the exchange of good practices and ensure a participatory approach. You can follow the developments of each Committee in the news section by selecting a relevant filter.

Once these Committees form, they will each develop an action plan which would see a test phase where different innovative pilot tests would be identified, monitored and finally evaluated before becoming brand new practices contributing positively to the overall environmental impact of sports.

As soon as the Circular City Committees kick off, we will announce the four pilot cities/regions which would see the application and the deployment of the processes mentioned above.

The project received numerous support letters from various public authorities and other organisations relevant in the field of sports and environment.

SUPPORT FROM PROJECT COUNTRIES:

SUPPORT FROM EXTERNAL STAKEHOLDERS:

About us

The participating technical partners, namely ACR+ and the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies have a long running record in both working with sports organisations and local and regional authorities, as well as a various set of respective stakeholders. This experience comes from projects and initiatives which were addressing circular economy principles in various sectors such as tourism, sports, and heritage cities. While these technical partners bring their expertise in circular economy and environmental management principles, knowledge on examples of best practices and facilitation of cross-sectoral initiatives, the four sports organisations will open their doors to assessments, interviews, and identifications of relevant local and regional stakeholders.

Nonetheless, the fact that ACR has more than 100 members across Europe and beyond and that SSSA is present in numerous academic events and that the sports organisations gather sports clubs and regional offices across their countries opens a door to an extensive dissemination and replicability potential reaching out to the most remote areas.

The sports organisations brought on board were carefully selected. The underlying principle when creating the consortium was indeed addressing their relevance to the project’s objectives. The four sports organisations explicitly have environmental protection, sustainable development, and community support among their objectives, also reflected in their activities. The extent of these activities differs between the project partners and will allow the project to come up with deliverables addressing sport organisations with various degrees of knowledge, skills, and activities in place. By participating in this project, they would be brought to a level playing field. Meet the technical partners:

ACR+

ACR+ is an international network of cities and regions sharing the aim of promoting a sustainable resource management and accelerating the transition towards a circular economy on their territories and beyond. Circular economy calling for cooperation between all actors, ACR+ is open to other key players in the field of material resource management such as NGOs, academic institutions, consultancy or private organisations.

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Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies – Institute for Management

The Institute of Management is active in the field of management in the context of private and public organisations as support to a renewed entrepreneurship, in a synergetic perspective, among business, institutions and research. The Institute is the result of a long-term cultural project with particular reference to the management of innovation, sustainability and health.

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Gaelic Athletic Association

The Gaelic Athletic Association is an Irish international amateur sporting and cultural organisation, focused primarily on promoting indigenous Gaelic games and pastimes, which include the traditional Irish sports of hurling, camogie, Gaelic football, Gaelic handball and rounders. The association also promotes Irish music and dance, as well as the Irish language. Since its foundation in 1884, the association has grown to become a major influence in Irish sporting and cultural life, with considerable reach into communities throughout Ireland and among the Irish diaspora.

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Football Association of Denmark

The Danish Football Union is the governing body of football in Denmark. It is the organisation of the Danish football clubs and runs the professional Danish football leagues and the men’s and women’s national teams. It is based in the city of Brøndby and is a founding member of both FIFA and UEFA. The DBU has also been the governing body of futsal in Denmark since 2008. The DBU was founded on 18 May 1889 and was the first national football association outside Great Britain and Ireland

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FC Porto

Futebol Clube do Porto, commonly known as FC Porto or simply Porto, is a Portuguese professional sports club based in Porto. It is best known for the professional football team playing in the Primeira Liga, the top flight of Portuguese football. Founded in 1893, Porto is one of the "Big Three" teams in Portugal – together with Lisbon-based rivals Benfica and Sporting CP, that have appeared in every season of the Primeira Liga since its establishment in 193

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Football Association of Wales

The Football Association of Wales is the governing body of association football and futsal in Wales, and controls the Welsh national football team, its corresponding women's team, as well as the Welsh national futsal team. It is a member of FIFA, UEFA and the IFAB. Established in 1876, it is the third-oldest national association in the world, and one of the four associations, along with the English Football Association, Scottish Football Association, Irish Football Association and FIFA, that make up the International Football Association Board, responsible for the Laws of the Game.

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Project

The ACCESS project is one of the latest advanced European projects which explore the world of environmental sustainability and environmental management in sports. Funded by the European Union’s Erasmus+ programme, ACCESS is looking at narrowing the gap between the current environmental performances of sport clubs and associations, their strategies, and practices on one side and on the other side – strategies and targets of the respective cities or regions they are located in and where their activities are taking place.

While many cities and regions in Europe are following the European wide pattern of adopting required strategies that would enhance and deploy various European policies and frameworks locally regarding waste, water, energy, mobility and other fields, their successful implementation or uptake among sports organisations is often limited and requires additional efforts to be achieved. This project will address these key challenges and turn them into enabling actions which will drive the application of circular economy solutions to sports forward. The project wants to promote innovative and replicable circular economy solutions among sports organisations as well as their cooperation and synergies with local and regional authorities which would contribute to achieving circular cities.

This is why this project aims at bringing together those responsible for organising sport events and local and regional authorities who are on the frontline of implementing European and national policies as the most competent bodies. The project wants to enable and support a transfer of knowledge, skills and competences in the field of environmental management, circular economy and sustainable development onto sports organisations and allow them to develop their own knowledge base and ultimately – strategies, initiatives, road maps and action plans aligned and contributing to their respective local and regional authorities’ efforts.