On June 8, in Brussels, ACR+ will feature TouriSME in its EU Green Week partner event on the role of sports in reaching a more circular economy! Is your city hosting large sports events or are you travelling to one of them? Join the event to find out more!
While a major sports event is always an exiting news for a city, and always means an abundant flow of tourists generating a great economic benefit, the environmental impact of this flow is heavy. As sports can be considered one of the most popular leisure activities for a great share of Europe’s population – either through practicing them or enjoying them as a supporter, they have an intangible potential for provoking a positive mindset change in wider communities towards contribution to environmentally friendly practices and building resilience therein, in general.
While goods and services and the necessary resource consumption are the obvious elephants in the room, the overall experience expands environmental impacts way beyond – affecting water use, energy consumption, biodiversity and ecosystems suffering, and much more. Projects and initiatives show that sports and the outreach they have – tens of thousands of people in each European city, are a largely untapped source of contribution to a more resilient and environmentally responsible society.
What skills and tools are needed to turn things around and consider sports as a driver for major attitude change? How to make sports aware of this opportunity? Why should sport entities and local and regional authorities working together rather than be in a love and hate relationship? This is what this Green Week side event wants to give answers to.