Championing golf’s work in sustainability and climate action
The recent Sustainable Golf Week was an inaugural week dedicated to helping connect golf’s commitments, actions and contributions to sustainability and climate action.
Commencing on the 18th day of the 9th month each year, two numbers synonymous with golf, the week provides an annual opportunity for golf to come together to reflect on the issues and opportunities; celebrate achievements and progress to date; and commit to drive further.
Much of this year’s effort centred on core messages; a structure to provide opportunities to profile different parts of golf; and key themes including nature, resources, community and climate – plus the many more detailed issues that lie within each of those.
The goal was to achieve a greater level of visibility and reach with a wide range of contributions from across the sector.
Overall, the feedback was very positive—from inside and outside golf— with engagement from around the world.
Outputs during the week came from most of the main professional tours; many international and national associations including EGA members; individual clubs and tournaments; suppliers; media partners and was also supported by some well-known players across more than 30 countries – to join up local, national and international voices.
A summary of some of the highlights can be found at the Sustainable Golf Week 2022 webpage.
Looking forward, feedback and ideas are welcome ahead of collaborating around the 2023 Sustainable Golf Week, so the event can be made a bigger and better expression of golf and sustainability in future years.
It’s an opportunity to combine efforts to raise awareness and inspire further action in golf, and at the same time help communicate more strongly to the general public, governments and the NGO sector.
It also gives a chance to share how golf is contributing to some of the defining issues of our time, and how golf is working to be the sport which does the most, when it is most needed during this ‘Decade of Action’.
A few additional Sustainable Golf updates from the GEO Foundation
A very quick digest of other actions to help support and promote golf’s sustainability and climate action efforts being carried out by GEO Foundation for Sustainable Golf, in collaboration with a wide group of stakeholders:
- Streamlined, faster version of the OnCourse program with more national customisation available. Versions available for clubs and for golf tournaments.
- New annual Sustainable Golf Scorecards available for clubs that use OnCourse: including key data across multiple years; a credible carbon footprint calculation; and an infographics kit to share good statistics each year.
- New ‘Sustainable Golf Indicators’ – the key metrics golf needs to track – all built into OnCourse and Scorecards; and also feeding national ‘Sustainable Golf Insights’ Data Reports for partner countries.
- In addition to carbon footprints for golf clubs, custom-built carbon calculation also available for tournaments and associations – with easy data collection solutions.
- Expanded Sustainable.Golf website platform to support greater knowledge sharing and stronger representation; includes Sustainable Golf Map and Directory to help represent leadership from associations, clubs and tournaments.
- Sustainable Golf Highlights hub – now populated with nearly 2000 real-world examples from around the world and growing every week; filter by country or topic and share in local languages.
- New marketing and communications kit for clubs with their Certification.
The team at GEO Foundation are always open and interested in input, ideas and collaboration - more information and contact details can be found at Sustainable.golf.