First one-day event to achieve highest level against sustainability standard implemented by World Athletics this year
In 2023, the meeting poster of the Oslo Bislett Games featured an illustration of a spear-tipped javelin, with a headline reading: ‘Spearhead within sport and sustainability’.
Underscoring that ambition to become a leader in the sport and sustainability space, the Oslo Bislett Games Diamond League fixture became the first one-day athletics competition to earn platinum level recognition against the Athletics for a Better World (ABW) Standard, the evaluation system implemented by World Athletics this year that measures an event’s achievements in sustainable delivery.
The event’s achievements included:
• Powered by 100% renewable energy
• 93% of the products used at the event were sourced within 100km
• 81% of spectators used public or active travel options to attend
• 100% of the event’s 200 tonnes of CO2 emissions were offset by investment in a local carbon capture project and an international reforestation project
• Achieving 50-50 gender parity on the organising committee
• Strong internal and external sustainability communications
• Strong athlete engagement
World Athletics President Sebastian Coe said: “For the better part of a decade, sustainability has been a driving force for organisers of the Oslo Bislett Games. They’ve created a template for excellence that all sports, not just athletics, can follow to find success. Our congratulations to their team.”
One of the most noteworthy initiatives was a zero-emission transfer of 120 athletes, personnel and media from Oslo to Stockholm for the Bauhaus-Galan meeting in the Swedish capital. Via a collaboration between organisers of the respective events that was four years in the making, electric buses transported everyone from the meeting hotel to Oslo’s central station, where specially booked trains awaited. The five-hour train journey, which passed through serene settings dotted by dense forests and clear Nordic lakes, ended at the central station in Stockholm, just a two-minute walk from the meeting’s main hotel. That one-way train journey released 247.46kg of CO2 equivalent into the atmosphere, 12 times less than the CO2e that would have been emitted if those 120 people flew, contributing to a substantial reduction in the event’s carbon footprint.
The arrangement will be expanded in 2025. After a train journey connects all meeting stakeholders traveling from Oslo (12 June) to Stockholm (15 June), all competitors, personnel and officials participating in the Paavo Nurmi Games (17 June), a Continental Tour Gold event in Turku, will travel by ferry to the southwestern Finnish city.
In January 2024, sustainability reporting through the Athletics for a Better World Standard became a requirement for most global elite competitions managed or awarded by World Athletics. The standard consists of 55 action areas that address efforts to minimise an event’s environmental impact and maximise its social and local economic benefits.
To date, nearly 100 events have either started or completed their ABW Standard reporting.
The Hypo Meeting in Gotzis, Austria, one of the world’s premiere combined events competitions, achieved gold level. The Boston Marathon, one of the most famous marathons in the world, achieved silver.
When fully adopted, the ABW standard will be the largest sustainability evaluation system in the sport industry.
In March, the World Athletics Indoor Championships Glasgow 24 became the first World Athletics Series (WAS) event to achieve the platinum level.
World Athletics
