The International Floorball Federation is among three sports (biathlon, athletics, floorball) that participate in an project aiming to explore how their respective sports can adopt more practices to mitigate their impact on climate change.
As part of the GAMES (Green Approaches in Management for Enhancing Sports) project – an Erasmus+ funded initiative – project coordinators, the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, will analyse the climate governance and management models currently used in the three sports and support the development of decarbonisation strategies for each partner.
The three year project is led by the Italian Public University, Sant’ Anna School of Advanced Studies (SSSA). The establishment has extensive experience in leading sustainability projects especially within football. The three sports that are taking part in the project are floorball, biathlon and athletics. They are represented in the consortium of partners by their respective international head federations: the International Biathlon Union and World Athletics. Floorball participates together with the lead of the Swedish Floorball Federation and the IFF in a consultative role. Further, the company Touchline, the London-based agency that specialises in sports and sustainability and publishes The Sustainability Report, acts as the dissemination and communications partner.
The aim of the project is to raise awareness and increase the adoption of climate change mitigation practices by key sport actors in order to improve sustainability at sports events. Through this project, the participants will analyse the climate change governance and models currently used in athletics, biathlon and floorball, and support the development of decarbonisation strategies in each sport while using their popularity to raise broader environment awareness. You can read more about the project on the dedicated website.
– We are very happy to be accepted to the GAMES project together with the Swedish Floorball Federation. Since the International Floorball Federation decided to invest more into fighting climate change – signing the UN Sports for Climate Action network commitment in 2019 – we have been looking at ways to develop concrete actions. With this ERASMUS+ project we get three things in one: an evaluation of our current status, new tools and the implementation thereof. Further, I am very impressed by the dedication of all participating parties and am confident we will see great results, states Tero Kalsta, the IFF representative in the project.
Over the project’s 30-month period, the GAMES partners will produce a number of deliverables, including sport and the environment webinars, a selection of workshops on decarbonisation and communication, a mid-term report and conference, a survey of sports managers and a final report and conference detailing the findings and achievements of the project, as well as regular updates via the GAMES website and newsletter.
You can follow the GAMES project progress by signing up for its monthly newsletter on the GAMES website.
– Sustainability nowadays is a must for us, in everything from our daily operations to our events. This project is very ambitious stretching over several years and is closely related to the World Floorball Championships 2024 in Malmö, which we have already started working on. Sustainability is one of the cornerstones for the 2024 tournament as well as our other events. We are very much looking forward to, together with the other international players, address the issue and find best practices in working with sustainability, says Magnus Nilsson, General Director of the WFC 2024 (Swedish Floorball Federation).
