"Every time a person plays a sport there is an impact on the environment"

The UPF Barcelona School of Management hosted the conference on Sport, Sustainability and Climate Emergency on Wednesday 28 April. The welcome was given by Carles Murillo, director of the Master’s in Sports Management at UPF-BSM, who wanted to thank all the collaborators and promoters of the event for their work and effort in carrying it out; at the same time he detailed the structure of the event, divided into round tables and detailed the theme of each debate. Murillo also detailed the objectives of the day: "The main thing is to analyze and debate based on the examples and testimonies of the speakers, the reflection of the moderators and the intervention of the attendees." All with the intention of answering the questions what can sport do for sustainability? How can sport help the 2030 Agenda? How can sustainability be implemented in sport in a persistent way over time? And how sport can help with climate emergencies

Isidre Rigau, from Summa Sports and professor of the Master's in Sports Management at UPF-BSM, then spoke to introduce the concept of sustainability, which covers areas as different as environmental impact, political, social and economic sustainability. meteorology and climate: "Whenever a person practices sport there is an impact on the environment, we must be aware of this." Rigau stressed that sustainability in sport has been a term promoted by the United Nations and the International Olympic Committee and that "it is not a wave or a fad, it has come to stay".

After the introduction, the first round table entitled Commitment took place: a responsible sports practice moderated by Oriol Serra, the INDESCAT Cluster Manager and the presence of the representative of the Kilian Jornet Foundation, Gerard Vila, and Theresa Zabell, of the Ecomar foundation.

Through a video, Jornet explained the activity of the foundation and one of the projects he is working on: “Last year I created the foundation with the aim of taking care of the mountains and their surroundings. The role of the outdoor sports industry is very important for the ecological transition. I think it is a sector that leads and inspires to make this transition, so we have listed ten goals for the various actors - athletes and practitioners, organizers, federations and brands and manufacturers - taking into account climate change, production and consumption models , biodiversity, pollution and the use of natural resources ”.

"Listing goals is easy, the difficult thing is to specify measures, so we want to be a collaboration tool so that actors can share and get ideas," said Jornet. "I am optimistic that if we take actions from small organizations to large corporations for the climate emergency, we will be able to have a healthy planet," Jornet added.

Entre la lluna i el mar

Seguidament Zabell ha agafat la paraula i ha explicat l’activitat de la fundació Ecomar amb més de 22 anys dedicats a la cura del medi marí: “Sabem menys del fons del mar que de la superfície de la Lluna”. La fundació intenta lluitar a través d’escoles, centres esportius i grups de persones explicant quin és l’orígen dels problemes dels mars -sobrepesca, sobreescalfament, contaminació- i com es pot arribar a una solució:“Treballem amb criatures en cinc pilars: esport, vida sana, concienciació, solidaritat i sostenibilitat”. Entre les activitats més vistoses de la fundació, a part de la col·laboració amb entitats esportives, és la neteja de costes: “Hem recollit més de 19.750 kg de residus des de 2014”.

“Tenim cura dels dos únics llocs dels quals no ens podrem mudar mai, el nostre cos i el nostre planeta”, ha sentenciat Zabell.