Erfahre im Video mehr, welche Ziele sich die Tour de Suisse zum Thema Nachhaltigkeit auf die Fahne schreibt und mit welchen Massnahmen diese erreicht werden sollen.
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00:00 Hello and welcome everybody to today's small talk about sustainability at Tour de Suisse.
00:28 I have with me Manuel López from Gambion who is helping us with the project and the strategy
00:38 all around sustainability at this major sport event of the Tour de Suisse.
00:47 So hello Manuel.
00:48 Hi, how are you?
00:50 Nice that you are here.
00:52 Thank you for having me.
00:53 We have a really important topic called sustainability at the Tour de Suisse.
01:00 Why is sustainability so important to us and what are we going to do to maintain or to
01:08 reduce our footprint of the whole event?
01:14 Cycling usually is very ecological.
01:17 It's an ecological sport but why are CO2 emissions for the Tour de Suisse still an important
01:25 topic?
01:26 Yeah, thanks for having me.
01:29 So yes, cycling is really, really sustainable as a mode of transport.
01:34 So I encourage everybody to think about using a bike or walking to go around cities.
01:40 Now when you think about events such as a major cycling race for professional athletes,
01:46 there's lots of things that come into play.
01:49 For example, you have about 40 teams coming from various places around the world.
01:56 They also have a number of crews with them.
01:58 So we're talking about hundreds of people with cars, support vehicles.
02:02 And then of course there's also many spectators, the order of hundreds of thousands a day coming
02:09 to the race.
02:10 And of course they come with trains but also with cars.
02:14 So the mobility aspect generates quite a bit of emission unfortunately, despite the sustainable
02:21 nature of cycling itself.
02:25 I see that there is a concept in this sustainability project which is divided into three scopes.
02:37 Something you often hear also in the media, scope one, scope two and scope three.
02:45 What are these scopes all about also in respect to the Tour de Suisse?
02:50 So the scope framework is a scope that's been developed internationally, is used widely
02:56 to sort of categorize the emissions.
02:59 So scope one has to do with direct emissions from, in this case, an event.
03:05 So for example, the cars that you drive to go from one place to the other at the organization
03:13 level.
03:14 So the logistics aspect of it.
03:16 Scope two is everything that has to do with the energy, so heating, not in the summer
03:20 but cooling, and also electricity, the lights and so on.
03:27 And then scope three is usually the largest and it's true in the case of the Tour de Suisse.
03:32 It's everything that's indirect.
03:33 So that's the contribution of the teams as they travel, it's the contribution of the
03:37 media, the police and the spectators as well.
03:41 So therefore scope three is mainly the biggest part of the CO2 emissions of the event of
03:48 the Tour de Suisse.
03:50 That's why we have to work on, right?
03:52 Yes, exactly.
03:53 And it's the toughest to address because oftentimes you don't have any control of it.
03:58 You can raise awareness, for example, with your spectators, but obviously you do have
04:04 to keep the flexibility to let them move as they need, as they want, and so on, as it's
04:09 convenient to them.
04:10 So it's very difficult to address, but it's really where the impact can be the greatest.
04:19 We are sitting together for quite a while, working on the project of reducing the footprint
04:27 of the Tour de Suisse.
04:29 We've chosen you because you are an expert on that topic.
04:34 We set some targets as well regarding our reduction plans.
04:40 We have now a target to reduce the CO2 emissions by 50% until 2027.
04:49 What do you think?
04:50 Will we manage to reach these targets?
04:53 Yes, it's definitely a very, aggressive is not the word, I'm looking for the right word,
05:00 a very high target, a high bar to pass.
05:05 But I think it's totally possible because it comes to, as I said, mobility, it's a great
05:10 deal.
05:11 And in Switzerland, we have very good public transportation.
05:15 So influencing the constituents to think about that, I think there's a lot of opportunities
05:21 in that respect.
05:24 It is an aggressive target even compared to the other organizations in the sports industry.
05:30 You are part of the United Nations for Climate Action, so called S4CA.
05:38 And you are a bit farther along in terms of your thinking at how fast you want to reduce
05:45 these targets.
05:48 But working together and your commitment, I think it's totally possible to get there.
05:54 You did a first analysis last year based on the facts we had throughout 2022.
06:02 In which areas do we have the highest potential to reduce the CO2 emissions?
06:10 So last year when we did that, we laid out about 20 strategies and started thinking about
06:16 where to focus.
06:17 It comes quite a bit at this point to mobility.
06:20 So the mobility of the teams with whom we started engaging and the mobility of the spectators,
06:26 again back to this scope three concept.
06:32 And beyond that, you can think of the race itself.
06:36 You can think about the energy consumption, the waste consumption, working with the local
06:40 organizers, the local committees to look at what happens on sites and so on.
06:47 So what measurements or what ideas and action plans did we set up now to reduce the CO2
07:02 emissions in, for instance, talking about spectators?
07:07 What is planned?
07:10 So this year, the focus in my mind is really about awareness and starting to set the path
07:17 for reductions.
07:19 And so at the spectator level, we started putting together some initiatives in the context
07:24 of awareness.
07:26 And one of them really, the one that leads to action is a climate challenge that was
07:32 put in place in our app.
07:35 And so it's accessible on your fan zone.
07:38 And the idea is really to get spectators to participate, subscribe to that challenge,
07:43 and then leading to the race to think about maybe one time using a bicycle instead of
07:49 a car to go in town, or maybe use the public transport to go to work once a week.
07:55 And then during the race, to mirror that by coming to the race maybe on a bicycle or use
08:00 public transport as well.
08:02 And so there'll be some good prizes put in place to make this more fun.
08:08 And so you can read more on the website.
08:11 There's no trip that's too small.
08:14 Even if the race is passing your village and it's three, two kilometers away, instead of
08:18 taking the car, just think about walking to it or dust off the bike and put a few kilometers
08:24 on the bike.
08:25 You mentioned also the World Tour teams taking part in the Tour de Suisse.
08:31 Of course, they do a lot of traveling as well.
08:34 They have their cars, they have their buses with them.
08:41 I know we have been in touch with the teams to figure out what they are doing towards
08:46 sustainability.
08:48 What is your experience with them?
08:50 Did they react on our requests?
08:52 Yeah, so I'm very pleased with what came through.
08:56 So we reached out to all of the teams in March and we got quite a bit of a return of responses
09:01 from them.
09:02 Of course, there is an area of activities today taking place from big teams to smaller
09:07 teams in terms of what they are capable of doing.
09:10 It also matters to some extent what the partner is doing, the coordinate between sponsors
09:17 and the team itself.
09:20 We've seen things such as placing solar panels on vehicles, on support vehicles and on buses
09:28 to sort of transform the use of energy.
09:30 We see teams using different policies for traveling so that when the travels are short
09:38 or inland, they avoid flying.
09:40 So there's quite a bit going on.
09:42 There's other things that are quite innovative such as, for example, putting out auctions
09:48 of frames and then taking that money and investing in climate actions or direct action.
09:56 Some teams are bringing their athletes to tree planting sites off-season in order to
10:03 promote action at the individual level.
10:06 So on all levels, people are working towards a more sustainable Tour de Suisse.
10:15 The last point you mentioned was the local committees, the OCs of the different stage
10:23 villages or cities we have.
10:28 What about that?
10:30 Do you go to them as well to figure out what they're doing?
10:34 Yeah, so that's another initiative that's on the way.
10:36 We're going to survey them right now in the coming days, so definitely before the race.
10:43 And the idea is to understand what they're doing.
10:46 Same thing, to raise awareness at the end.
10:48 We're going to publish everything we get.
10:50 We hope that the information will help some, stir new ideas.
10:55 We see a lot happening, for example, in organizing parking to be more efficient in the cities
11:03 around how the cars are being used.
11:06 So external parking and transport, which is a good first step.
11:11 A lot going on on the waste management, on the offers that are made in terms of food
11:17 at the event, so that there are meat substitutes being offered as well.
11:23 So it's all in motion, I'd say, both in the context of the teams and in the context of
11:28 the committees.
11:29 It's clearly that there is motion, there's more that can be done.
11:33 It's not all solved yet, but it's encouraging to see these directions taking place.
11:40 Now for the Tour de Suisse, the partners are also really important, who help us finance
11:47 this event, or enabling us even to organize this event.
11:56 What is there the issue?
11:59 Do we have issues with the partners at the Tour de Suisse, or what do you think?
12:03 Do we have to go further regarding partners, or are they already in place with their sustainability
12:11 strategies?
12:13 So what we see, we started this year to engage all those partners, and in general, for many
12:20 of them, we see strategies in place.
12:22 They have a plan, they start executing against that.
12:26 And so at this stage, what we do is really work towards coordinating with what they do
12:31 to optimize the effort, and to really work all together towards the issues that we are
12:39 trying to work towards.
12:41 Thanks a lot, Manuel.
12:43 Really interesting topic, a difficult topic as well.
12:47 We know that it is a lot of work, and we have to put in a lot of efforts to be able to reduce
12:55 the CO2 footprint of an ecological sport itself, but with an event at the back.
13:05 So thanks a lot for helping us with going into the right direction.
13:10 We will do our utmost to reach our targets of 50% reduction by 2027, and then hopefully
13:20 net zero in another five years.
13:24 So thanks a lot, and let's go on with the hard work, and enjoy the Tour de Suisse.
13:32 If you listening to this chat here want to help us to reduce the CO2 emissions of the
13:39 Tour de Suisse, because you will join and visit the Tour de Suisse at the roadside,
13:46 please come in on foot, by bike, or on public transport, and have a look at our fan zone.
13:53 At the Tour de Suisse site you will get a button called fan zone, and in there you will
13:58 find a lot of descriptions of our measurements and our initiatives, as well as the previously
14:06 mentioned CO2 challenge, where you can measure the saving of CO2 if you come to the Tour
14:14 de Suisse by bike or on foot.
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