Readers of last week’s blog will have learnt about our Season 2 highlights. After a successful first season for sustainability, it’s important to evaluate those successes and analyse where we can make improvements in future seasons. This blog will walk you through the processes of what we do to take stock, close off the year, and go again – a theme which every sporting organisation in the world should do!
How we close off the year
In the immediate aftermath of our final match, there was lots to do before everyone left the Team Hotel. The nature of knockout tournaments means that you’re never 100% sure of when you will be out of the competition, so creating systems to simplify the process of packing up and leaving is of paramount importance. This year, we focussed on collecting and recording leftover kit – either that which was earmarked for the fans for the knockout stages (which we didn’t quite reach), or kit which our team members wanted to leave for us to donate or upcycle. This consisted of creating a central location for players, coaches, and staff to leave kit, and communicating this with them. We have now got the leftover kit in our office, ready to distribute to our charity partners and upcycling businesses, and is one tick in the box in terms of closing off Season 2.
Many other things take slightly longer, however, and require persistence. One of the most important things from a sustainability perspective is to gather data for our Season 2 carbon footprint report – a process which we are currently in the middle of. We have been following up with suppliers, partners, and businesses with requests for information for various things pertaining to sustainability. The nature of requests varies depending on the supplier, but all are chased up to ensure that we are collecting everything which forms a part of our carbon footprint!
Once we have collected the data (and some suppliers are much quicker to respond than others, meaning this can take some time), we take the raw data and calculate our carbon footprint using greenhouse gas conversion metrics. As a signatory to the United Nations Sports for Climate Action (UN S4CA) Framework, we must submit our baseline footprint calculation to them within 18 months of joining, which is before October 2024 for us. Given that Season 1 was all about setting up the franchise, we will most likely take Season 2 as our baseline, as activities took place throughout the year, and is more representative of how we will operate as a franchise in the future. Therefore, we must have calculated our Season 2 footprint and written it up as a report to the UN by October, giving us plenty to crack on with.
Finally, we forged many fantastic partnerships centred around sustainability during Season 2, such as with the Dubai Sports Council, who became our Lead Sustainability Partner, or with Hertz Al-Futtaim, who became our Sustainable Mobility Partner, and many Sustainability Impact Partners or Sustainability Suppliers. We also started relationships and networking with sustainability professionals from various organisations in the UAE, whom we invited to our Sustainability Match. This makes the period between tournaments an exciting time to cement and expand on those partnerships, and seek new ways to work together with organisations to accelerate decarbonisation and sustainability in sports and the Middle East.
What’s next for Season 3?
The end of the season is a fantastic time to analyse what went well and what can be improved upon for the following season. Undoubtedly the success story of the season with regards to sustainability was the eradication of single-use plastic water bottles from our team environment. We will be looking to expand upon this success in Season 3, but we are also looking at where else to focus our efforts and priorities for the forthcoming season. Should we be targeting team travel on the ground in Dubai? Can we look at changing how we fly to reduce the emissions from that? Or should we focus on working with our partners at our hotel and stadium to reduce the emissions from those sources? The answer for this season is that we will be attempting to reduce emissions from all three of these areas, and many more, but we will pay a particular focus to team kit.
Sports apparel (and the fashion industry as a whole) is a major source of environmental damage, and in Season 1 it was the 2nd largest source of our emissions, behind air travel. It is also something which we can control to a large extent, as we can choose our suppliers and the type of material which forms our kit. We are currently exploring potential options, but this feels like another area where we can shift the dial in sports and change the game (just like with water in Season 2). Matt Bailey and I (Ben Hardy-Jones) will be off to the Sportswear Pro 2024 Conference this week in Amsterdam to learn about sustainable sportswear options, considering all implications, from performance for the athlete, to environmental, operational, cost, partnership opportunities, and many more areas. If you are at the conference and would like to say hello, let us know!
Finally, off the pitch, we are also expanding our Schools Programme and community engagement, and we now have a dedicated full time member of staff in Jack Luffman (who is also Chairman of the Dubai Wanderers, a local cricket club), who will oversee these aspects. These programmes give us a fantastic opportunity to ensure that the Vipers are a part of the local community, and are a way for us to continue our engagement in the off-season, so we’re incredibly excited to see how we can increase our community engagement in Season 3!
Sustainability Spotlight – Hertz Al-Futtaim
This week’s Sustainability Spotlight focusses on our Sustainable Mobility Partner, Hertz Al-Futtaim. Hertz is the world’s fastest growing car rental franchise, and in the UAE, the Hertz franchise has been top of the class in terms of service, quality, and capacity over the last 21 years. Their Al-Futtaim franchise places significant and on-going investment into the company’s fleet, including electric vehicles (EVs). As part of our partnership, Desert Vipers were provided with an EV for Season 2, in an effort to reduce the emissions from our team travel, and accelerate decarbonisation in the automotive industry in the UAE.
Beyond providing solutions to help with our decarbonisation efforts, Hertz UAE are also supporting our Schools Programme, where we are teaching children cricket, with a sustainability twist. We recently took our programme into the Dubai British School, and to the students from the Heroes of Hope, which wouldn’t have been possible without the support of Hertz UAE. To show what the Programme means to all involved, here is a fantastic quote from Jonathan Houghton, the Director of Sport at British School Emirates Hills : “It was a pleasure to have the coaching team from the Desert Vipers working with our students here at Dubai British School Emirates Hills. It was fantastic to see the pupils focused, engaged, and challenged by the skills, drills, and game play that they experienced”. Bravo!
