News

The six project partners met in Dublin on 9 April, for their regular Steering Committee meeting which was marked by an important milestone – the announcement and sharing of their Action Plans.

Natural environment, ecosystems and biodiversity probably aren’t the first things one would think of when it comes to environmental sustainability of sports. Nevertheless, large sport events, renovations and buildings of existing or new large structures and venues, use of resources such as water, energy and more have a big impact on the living environment and ecosystems surrounding sport events.

At the end of 2023, the Council  of the EU approved its conclusions on women and equality in the field of sport, with the ambition to increase the proportion of women in sports leadership positions, prevent all forms of harassment and protect victims of gender-based violence, and increase coverage of women’s sport competitions.

The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) is looking forward to hosting the next project meeting and the local dissemination event of the ACCESS project in Dublin in April.

The GAA games, as well as other events at Croke Park will never be the same, at least what concerns food and beverage and its environmental and carbon footprint!

Ms. Teresa Santos, Sustainability Manager for FC Porto, uncovers the club’s progressive strides toward sustainability in professional sports venues

M-SParc, Wales’ first dedicated science park, has been unveiled as home of the FAW Innovation Hub, on Ynys Mon.

Hosted by the Welsh Sports Association (WSA), in collaboration with the Federation of Irish Sports (FIS) and supported by the the Welsh Government’s Agile Cymru initiative, the Conference aimed to deliver cross-border and economic co-operation across shared interests.

February 9 marked a new milestone for FC Porto as the first meeting of the Circular City Committee (CCC) took place within the ACCESS project.

The ACCESS project is counting down the number of the webinars before the last one takes place and the overall series end. Don’t miss the last two episodes and watch the recordings of the previous ones.

Last September saw the establishment of the Dublin based Circular City Committee, as the Gaelic Athletics Association held the first meeting with its future members.

The Danish FA’s project activities in the second half of 2023 were marked with setting up contacts with relevant stakeholders what resulted in establishing their Circular City Committee.

Qualitative or quantitative, data or observation based, many environmental assessment approaches, tools and techniques exist out there – something that served as a perfect occasion to compare, discuss and understand their application in practice during the webinar.

Halfway through the ACCESS webinar series, after the first two successfully delivered episodes on communication and reporting and environmental assessments, the third webinar will be looking at green procurement and supply chains in sports, on 15 January 2024 at 11.00 (CET).

After the successful first episode of the webinar series, which took place on 15 November, the next one, looking at qualitative and quantitative assessment of sport organisations’ environmental footprint is taking place on 15 December.

In terms of the project workplan and its current phase, the time has come for extensive training and capacity building among the participating sport organisations in order for them to achieve their objectives in terms of improving their environmental performance. Best thing about this series – it is open for all the interested parties to attend!

One of the biggest gathering of sport organisations in Europe took place in Lisbon last week, under the patronage of European Sports NGO (ENGSO) bringing together more than 200 participants representing National Olympic Sport Committees, National Sport Confederations and numerous NGOs. And the ACCESS project was present there.

As the ACCESS project advances and starts producing concrete and applicable plans for environmental management improvements in the participating sport organisations, the consortium came together in Porto to discuss challenges, opportunities and exchange different approaches these plans would require.

As the second leg of ACR+’s tour of Wales and Ireland, Ernest Kovacs visited the GAA and its headquarters, including its largest stadium – Croke Park. The impressions – more than impressive!

As the project advances and enters its new phase, the project partners will meet physically for the third time, this time in Porto in September – a great occasion to open up the project to our external audience.