Sport broadcasters form new sustainability consortium

Sky Sports has meanwhile confirmed it is the first sports broadcaster to sign up to the UNFCCC Sports for Climate Action Framework

Set up this week, the BAFTA Sports Consortium builds upon the BAFTA’s Albert initiative, which provides businesses and individuals across the broadcasting sector with resources to help them not only minimise the environmental impacts of their operations, but change the narrative around sustainability issues.

The new sporting consortium will feature Sky Sports, BBC, ITV, BT Sport, Sunset & Vine, IMG, Premier League Productions, AELTC, Formula 1, Aurora Media and Channel 4.

Aaron Matthews, Albert’s head of industry sustainability said: “The challenges faced by the television sports community are quite unique when compared to those of our core Consortium members, not least because sports producers are at the behest of the sporting calendar and have to broadcast events from all over the world,” he said. “We wanted to create a separate group that could discuss the challenges they face and work on tailored solutions that can help them achieve net-zero carbon emissions.”

The consortium will develop ways to reduce the environmental impacts of sports broadcasting by sharing best practice. Already, an onsite power-sharing agreement between Premier League Productions, Sky Sports and BT Sport has helped reduce carbon emissions by 50 tonnes in six months.

Sky Sports has meanwhile confirmed it is the first sports broadcaster to sign up to the UNFCCC Sports for Climate Action Framework.

The Framework aligns the sports community to the needs of the Paris Agreement through target setting and verified emissions reporting.

Sky Sports is the 140^th signatory and joins the likes of Formula 1, The All England Lawn Tennis Club and Spanish football club Real Betis in joining the framework.

Earlier this year, Sky unveiled a new commitment to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2030 through strategies to make its products more energy efficient, its film and TV more sustainable and by engaging consumers and the value chain to “go zero”.

Sky’s new commitment will see its entire fleet of 5,000 vehicles transition to zero emissions by 2030, alongside initiatives to make the technology products it offers and launches more efficient. TV and film recorded by the broadcaster will also be covered under the net-zero carbon ambition as well.

Sky had previously teamed with the Premier League to eliminate single-use plastics from the organisation by 2020.

Matt Mace