SailGP: Global sailing competition wins BBC Green Sport Ambition and Impact Award

SailGP has been awarded the BBC Green Sport Awards Ambition and Impact Award.

The global sailing competition becomes the first winner of the award which recognises an elite, professional or high-performance sporting body involved in the organisation of, or participation in, competitive sport that has net zero and reduction emissions targets by a specified date.

Launched in October 2018, SailGP had sustainability, as well as entertainment, in mind from the outset.

Last summer the fast-paced international competition launched its Impact League, which runs alongside its nine-event championship and rewards teams for sustainability and diversity.

But SailGP CEO Sir Russell Coutts doesn't want to stop there, and has set the target of a 55% reduction in carbon emissions by 2025.

"I think sport has an enormous power to influence people," he said.

"When we can connect our sport with a really powerful message around the environment and around inclusion, then I think it has the potential to really engage people in that, and hopefully change the way they view things."

To achieve its targets, SailGP is working on a variety of projects from emissions to broadcasting.

"We want to be 100% powered by nature, both on and off the water," said Coutts.

"We really looked at our operations and were originally flying a whole lot of people around the world to conduct our broadcast. We thought: 'Is there another way in?' That other way was to have a remote broadcast studio in London, where most of our operations were carried out.

"We really want to shift to clean energy solutions on the water, so remove our reliance on fossil fuels and create 100% clean energy solutions for all our operations, including our race marks, and our support fleet."

Those ambitions can't be realised alone, and Coutts knows with a global sporting organisation, it takes understating and collaboration of all involved.

"Everyone involved in SailGP loves our purpose programmes," he said. "They really are engaged in it, they really care about it, and the teams really care about the impact programme now. That wasn't always the case but they are incredibly competitive about it and incredibly passionate about the positive impact that they're having."